Awesome posts, these rules are simple and yet they can make a huge difference in the code quality!
As you said, these are not written in stone but still, there is one rule that bothers me a lot:
Methods and functions can be no longer than 5 lines of code
I like the idea of reducing the size of classes, functions, methods, etc... but 5 lines (10 even) is just impossible most of the time and in my opinion over reducing functions/methods sizes makes the code harder to read in most cases. Splitting 15 lines over 3 functions makes it hard to keep up for someone unfamiliar with the code. Overusing syntaxic shortcuts is no good either if clarity is your main goal.
Ah interesting, I personally am very much in the 5 lines or less camp -- I think it is rare that your function is doing one thing only if it is longer than that! I rarely even write functions that are a full five lines of code to be honest!
While I generally hold as close to this rule as I can, there are times where I've had to break the rule to get the job done. Those have mostly been in financial applications, and numerical methods (ordinary differential equation solvers, spherical harmonics, etc.). Basic CRUD apps, I've hardly ever written any function that requires more than 5 lines.
Now I'm more into big functions when there is no/not much duplication involved.
I use blocks to encapsulate parts of the bigger functions and early returns, so you often don't need to scroll down the whole function.
Jumping around a file or multiple files to find 10 functions that are only used once or twice when they could have been a few extra lines in the main function doesn't cut it for me anymore.
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Awesome posts, these rules are simple and yet they can make a huge difference in the code quality!
As you said, these are not written in stone but still, there is one rule that bothers me a lot:
I like the idea of reducing the size of classes, functions, methods, etc... but 5 lines (10 even) is just impossible most of the time and in my opinion over reducing functions/methods sizes makes the code harder to read in most cases. Splitting 15 lines over 3 functions makes it hard to keep up for someone unfamiliar with the code. Overusing syntaxic shortcuts is no good either if clarity is your main goal.
Yeahh, 5 lines is too short IMO. Especially for the more verbose languages. To be fair, a function can be reasonably long and still do only one thing.
Ah interesting, I personally am very much in the 5 lines or less camp -- I think it is rare that your function is doing one thing only if it is longer than that! I rarely even write functions that are a full five lines of code to be honest!
While I generally hold as close to this rule as I can, there are times where I've had to break the rule to get the job done. Those have mostly been in financial applications, and numerical methods (ordinary differential equation solvers, spherical harmonics, etc.). Basic CRUD apps, I've hardly ever written any function that requires more than 5 lines.
I followed this practice for a few years.
Now I'm more into big functions when there is no/not much duplication involved.
I use blocks to encapsulate parts of the bigger functions and early returns, so you often don't need to scroll down the whole function.
Jumping around a file or multiple files to find 10 functions that are only used once or twice when they could have been a few extra lines in the main function doesn't cut it for me anymore.