We have heard a lot about NFTs. Now we master the Fungible concept
TL;DR: Respect the MAPPER. Make fungible what is Fungible in real-world and vice-versa.
Problems
Bijection Fault
Over Design
Solutions
Identify fungible elements on your domains
Model them as interchangeable
Context
According to Wikipedia
Fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable and each of whose parts is indistinguishable from another part.
In software, we can replace fungible objects with others.
When mapping our objects with real ones, we sometimes forget about the partial model and build over design.
Sample Code
Wrong
public class Person implements Serializable {
private final String firstName;
private final String lastName;
public Person(String firstName, String lastName) {
this.firstName = firstName;
this.lastName = lastName;
}
}
shoppingQueueSystem.queue(new Person('John', 'Doe'));
Right
public class Person {
}
shoppingQueueSystem.queue(new Person());
// The identity is irrelevant for queue simulation
Detection
[X] Manual
This is a semantic smell.
We need to understand the model to check whether it is right or not.
Tags
- Over Design
Conclusion
Make fungible what is fungible and vice-versa.
Sounds easy but requires design skills and avoiding accidental complexity.
Credits
Photo by Andrey Metelev on Unsplash
People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.
Donald Knuth
This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.
Top comments (1)
I have seen it a few times, and always feel something, but I didn't know what and why. Now I know - thank you.