Yes, I'm an old fuddy-duddy. I started programming back in the 80's and learned Turbo Pascal and Modula-2.
I still remember that making code readable was about using helpful names for variables and functions... and ALWAYS make sure those names were visually different so that you wouldn't confuse them. (e.g. $user, $users, $Users)
Well, welcome to the world of Ruby on Rails.
if Michael Hartl's tutorial is any indication, then this world is chock full of references to things that all look the same. So far, I've discovered that the following are very VERY different, yet they look so similar. These are all variables, instances or classes. (I get so confused!)
user
users
User
@user
micropost
microposts
Micropost
@micropost
And yes, I do find all this hard on my tired old eyes. While it might "read more like English" I have to wonder at what cost. I'm sure someday I'll lose hours trying to find a bug that was more about a missing (or extra) "s" than anything else.
If being readable means that my code is hardly debugable, then maybe we've "swung the pendulum" too far!
I still remember that making code readable was about using helpful names for variables and functions... and ALWAYS make sure those names were visually different so that you wouldn't confuse them. (e.g. $user, $users, $Users)
Well, welcome to the world of Ruby on Rails.
if Michael Hartl's tutorial is any indication, then this world is chock full of references to things that all look the same. So far, I've discovered that the following are very VERY different, yet they look so similar. These are all variables, instances or classes. (I get so confused!)
user
users
User
@user
micropost
microposts
Micropost
@micropost
And yes, I do find all this hard on my tired old eyes. While it might "read more like English" I have to wonder at what cost. I'm sure someday I'll lose hours trying to find a bug that was more about a missing (or extra) "s" than anything else.
If being readable means that my code is hardly debugable, then maybe we've "swung the pendulum" too far!
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