Digital Mars - digitalmars.D - Redundancy in Programming Languages

↑ ↓ ← → bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Walter Bright Wrote:
 http://reddit.com/info/6ip9w/comments/


A possible link:
http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Redundancy-in-Programming-Languages.html&Itemid=29

I have already answered to some of the points of that article in the last days
in the newsgroup, I generally like that article, it sums part of the
discussions seen so far (but I don't agree with everything it says).

There's a balance: redundancy may avoid you some bugs, but may slow down your
programming a bit, or it may make your code a bit less readable, so it's always
a matter of balance, because such extra programming speed may be used to write
more unit tests that are able to catch bugs (often higher-level bugs than a
wrongly spelled variable name. I have nearly never fallen in that trap in
Python, so it's not that common, even if I don't use a Python lint program).
That's why Python programming is often faster, but you end writing many
unittests/doctests that burn part of that saved time.
Modern IDEs may speed up your programming a lot, so you may end writing code
quickly even if you use very redundant languages like Java.

And such sweet spot may be different for different people: I am sure I may
enjoy more redundancy if I am a newbie programmer (or even when I am a newbie
for a specific language but not for programming), Pascal was a good example of
more constrained and more redundant language useful for teaching programming.
Today Java is another example.

Bye, and thank you for such little articles,
bearophile

May 08 2008

↑ ↓ ← → janderson <askme me.com> writes:

bearophile wrote:
 Walter Bright Wrote:
 http://reddit.com/info/6ip9w/comments/


 A possible link:
 


 I have already answered to some of the points of that article in the 


of the discussions seen so far (but I don't agree with everything it says).
 There's a balance: redundancy may avoid you some bugs, but may slow 


readable, so it's always a matter of balance, because such extra 
programming speed may be used to write more unit tests that are able to 
catch bugs (often higher-level bugs than a wrongly spelled variable 
name. I have nearly never fallen in that trap in Python, so it's not 
that common, even if I don't use a Python lint program). That's why 
Python programming is often faster, but you end writing many 
unittests/doctests that burn part of that saved time.
 Modern IDEs may speed up your programming a lot, so you may end 


 And such sweet spot may be different for different people: I am sure 


am a newbie for a specific language but not for programming), Pascal was 
a good example of more constrained and more redundant language useful 
for teaching programming. Today Java is another example.
 Bye, and thank you for such little articles,
 bearophile


I think that as programs get more complex, bug hunting time goes way up. 
   Redundancy helps reduce the amount of time you spend int the 
debugger.  That's why I now use lots of invariant checks, static 
Asserts, runtime assets, unitchecks and strongly typed code to reduce 
that amount of time.  I want to catch a bug as early as possible.

Sometimes it just helps to break things down into the obvious and get 
and understanding of what you do.

So my order for catching bugs is :
1) Self Code review (while I compile -> Well D is a bit fast but in 
general I use C++)
2) At compile time (ie strongly typed code (from private values to using 
a class instead of a raw value) and static asserts help a lot).
3) In a unit test. (also unit checked invariant checks)
4) At load time. (asserts / messages / logs)
5) At runtime, erroneous values (invariant checks and asserts)
6) At runtime, crash. (minidump)
7) Peer review.
8) On automated build / tests.
9) On QA's Computer.
10) On Alpha / Beta / Release / Patch candidates.
11) On Clients computer.  This is what you don't want have to do.  You 
don't want to have an error occur on some rare piece of code that was 
never tested simply because it was written in a way that the compiler 
couldn't verify correctness. At least at for something simple.

For a smaller app with less people, I wouldn't worry about this so much.

-Joel

May 08 2008

↑ ↓ ← → Russell Lewis <webmaster villagersonline.com> writes:

bearophile wrote:
 (huge snip)
 ...I have nearly never fallen in [the variable name typo] trap in Python...


I write a little in PHP for my website, and I hit it *all the time*.

If you are writing a program (or a new function) from scratch, you don't 
hit it often, because you have recent memory of the names you used.  But 
when you are maintaining barely-remembered old code (as is usually my 
case on the website) it is *VERY* common.

Remind me...was that variable named "fieldOK", "fieldOk", "fieldFound",
"foundField", "field_found", or "results[fieldFound]" ?

It's even worse when you are accessing somebody else's library.  I 
recently got bit on things like:

- $_SERVER[REDRIECT_URL]  (had to change to $_SERVER[REQUEST_URI] when 
PHP version changed...but no warnings, just weird chdir() errors whenI 
used the wrong variable)
- $_SERVER[REQEUST_URI]  (typo)
- $_POST is used on some pages, $_GET on others...reads of undefined 
fields just silently return empty values
- urldecode()  (actual function name is url_decode() )

Just a few examples I hit recently.

Ofc, YMMV.

May 09 2008

↑ ↓ ← → "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:

"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:g000mh$1bd0$1 digitalmars.com...
 http://reddit.com/info/6ip9w/comments/


Love the article, spot-on IMO.

But one minor issue: Maybe it's just something wrong on my system, or maybe 
it's site's fault, but the text for the section headings (ex. "How can good 
redundancy be distinguished from bad redundancy?") is about half the size of 
the article's body text.

May 08 2008