Discussion on: When do you create a function or method?

[Truong Hoang Dung]

Please always use function as possible, and outsource the this.
I mean, instead of

class AwesomeClass

  def hello_world
    this.variable = other_method();
  end

end

use this

def hello_world(this)
  this.variable = other_method();
  return this;
end

[Sergiu Mureşan]

Which language is this?

[Truong Hoang Dung]

It's just a pseudocode based on Ruby.

[Sergiu Mureşan]

Interesting. Few languages have this feature. So does that make the function an actual method but outside the class?

[Truong Hoang Dung]

I edited by replacing function with def keyword.
Basically, instead of making class as global, use more functions as global primitives.

[Sergiu Mureşan]

And where do you put these functions?

[Truong Hoang Dung]

Put those right in Ruby files. Then when you require that file, you can use your functions.

[Sergiu Mureşan]

So just one extra file where you put all functions (or methods in this case) related to that class?

[Truong Hoang Dung]

my_modules.rb

def function1
end

def function2
end

[Basile B.]

Yes this is based on the fact that member functions should only be added if they use private or protected declarations. Member functions that use only the public declarations of an aggregate are just bloating the aggregate. This can even, in some rare cases, have a performance penalty, for example if the language has virtual by default (yes this exists !) however most of the time it's just a matter of readability (especially for languages that don't separate the declarations from the implementation).