Tag Archives: Theory

Don’t Mix Levels Of Abstraction — Clean Code by Martin

By Sam | Published: April 8, 2010
I am reading a book on programming called Clean Code by Robert Martin. Every once in a while I find a text that is really relevant to the work I do day to day, and this is one of them. (The last one I think was Head First Ajax) One example from the book that [...]
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Don’t invent names when you don’t have to.

By Sam | Published: April 21, 2009
Anyone who has done any web programming has dealt with request parameters in one form or another. In Perl this is done with calls like: if ($query->param('task') eq 'stop_timer') { # stop the timer } One instinct that I am increasingly feeling is important to avoid, is to dereference out, or store variables like this [...]
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“Build” as metaphor for software development

By Sam | Published: January 8, 2009
I think there are parallels between software engineering and say, fine furniture building.  There is the relentless aesthetic of quality, the sense of craftsmanship versus hack, and often (given a taste for things of this nature) a sense of the intrinsic beauty of the finished product. The place that this metaphor begins to break down [...]
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