Code Smell 03 - Functions Are Too Long

Humans get bored beyond line 10.

Problems

• Low Cohesion
• High coupling
• Difficult to read

Solutions

1) Refactor

2) Create small objects dealing with some of the tasks. Unit test them.

3) Compose methods

Examples

• Libraries

Sample Code

Wrong

Right

Detection

All linters can measure and warn when methods are larger than a predefined threshold.

Relations

Also Known as

• Long Method

More info

• Refactoring Guru

Tags

• Complexity

Credits

Photo by Hari Panicker on Unsplash

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This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.

Comments

[Winston Puckett]

A developer I really respect said, "a developer can only hold one screen's worth of code at one time." And sets the function limit according to how big the average developer's screens are. I also like the way you said it, "humans get bored beyond line 10."

[Eduardo Luz]

Sorry, but at first glance I didn't see any difference among the right and wrong code.