[erlang-questions] Best practice for defining functions with edoc,erlc,eunit and the dialyzer

[Richard O'Keefe]

On Dec 2, 2009, at 11:31 PM, Zoltan Lajos Kis wrote:
>>
> One more thing that can be addressed is the order of exporting (and  
> defining) functions. My preference is to:
> - 1, export API functions
> - 2, export Behavior callback functions (a separate export line for  
> each behavior)
> - 3, export internal functions. The functions that you _don't want  
> to export_, but Erlang makes you to do so in order to use them in  
> spawns, applys, etc.
>

Could I make a plea for
  - a SINGLE export list for all "API" (horrible term) functions
  - in alphabetic order

> Something like:
>
> %% API
> -export([start_link/0, update/0, get/1, put/2, ...]).

Something like

-export([
     get/1,
     put/2,
     start_link/0,
     update/0
]).

It's just that much easier to see what the module is all about.
Someone using emacs can easily keep such a list in order using
sort-lines.

>
>
> %% Behavior callbacks
> -behaviour(gen_server).
> -export([init/1, handle_call/3, handle_cast/2, ...]).

Years ago I recommended that the syntax should be extended
to
	-behaviour(Behaviour, [Callback...]).
so that a cross-checking tool could tell that these functions
were *intended* to be used as callbacks by that behaviour and
weren't just accidentally adjacent.

>
>
> %% Internal functions
> -export([spawnee/0, applyee/2, ...]).

Now that we have spawn(fun () -> ... end) and F(...),
we shouldn't need this group at all.