[erlang-questions] DRY principle and the syntax inconsistency in fun vs. vanilla functions

[Michael Turner]

"Then we would have someone like you complaining the opposite and proposing
we all do it the way it is now..."

Another strawman. Where do I advocate using multi-clause fun syntax for
named functions *exclusively*? I don't. Clearly, even if the proposal here
were wildly popular, there would be the problem of compatibility with
existing code.

"Practical considerations would be better defined through education for core
language features."

Where have I suggested changing even ONE single core language feature?

Strawmen, strawmen, strawmen.

-michael turner

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:11 AM, Parnell Springmeyer <ixmatus@REDACTED>wrote:

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> > If I argued only from syntactic consistency, you'd have a point.
> > Frankly, I don't really care about syntactic consistency, if it doesn't
> > get me something. Having to type less gets me something. Having more
> > readable code gets me something. Those are practical considerations,
> > not mere pedantic ones. Dude.
>
> How do you type more? When I type a ";" in my editor it auto-completes
> the function clause for me, that is an empty argument for changing
> something so trivial.
>
> Practical considerations would be better defined through education for
> core language features.
>
> > What you have as
> >
> >    some_func(X, Y) ->
> >        %% Long bit of code
> >        ...;
> >    some_func(X, []) ->
> >        %% More code
> >
> > could, as I proposed above, also be written
> >
> >   some_func
> >      (X,Y) -> %% long bit of code
> >                  ...;
> >      (X,[]) -> %% More code
> >                  ....
>
> Because, now I would have:
>
>    some_func
>        (X, Y) ->
>            %% Long bit of code
>            ...;
>         (X, []) ->
>            %% More code
>            ....
>
> It makes the "structure" less flat when you start adding in indentation
> levels (which you *have* to do if you are writing non-trivial functions
> in order to be able to read them two weeks later).
>
> Again, the style you are suggesting is really well suited for functions
> with small and concise function bodies. Which, is well suited for the
> lambda. I use this all the time for small functions:
>
>    SomeFun = fun (X, Y)  -> %% Short peice of code;
>                  (X, []) -> %% Short peice of code.
>
> It's obviously much easier and quicker to read - but I don't beleive
> that is the case with named functions.
>
> > Why is this less readable to you? You could answer, "Because it's not
> > what I'm used to seeing in Erlang programs," but that begs the
> > question. If people were more used to seeing the latter -- because
> > making Erlang syntactically more self-consistent made it possible --
> > that argument wouldn't have much force -- except as an argument from
> > pure conservatism.
>
> Then we would have someone like you complaining the opposite and
> proposing we all do it the way it is now - that person would probably be
> me.
>
> > And this is entirely apart from "long bit of code" being a classic
> > Smell anyway:
> >
> >   http://www.soberit.hut.fi/mmantyla/BadCodeSmellsTaxonomy.htm
>
> This is why I used the word "pedantic", don't I know abstraction and
> orthogonality is preferred over monolithic functions? Of course I
> do. But, what does one consider "long"? Some functions I write are
> /better/ written as a long function to avoid unnecessary (read:
> pedantic) abstraction that actually clouds the intent.
>
> - --
> Parnell "ixmatus" Springmeyer (http://ixmat.us)
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