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For those of you in the Visual Studio environment, how do you feel about wrapping any of your code in #regions? (or if any other IDE has something similar...)
9 out of 10 times, code folding means that you have failed to use the SoC principle for what its worth.
I more or less feel the same thing about partial classes. If you have a piece of code you think is too big you need to chop it up in manageable (and reusable) parts, not hide or split it up.It will bite you the next time someone needs to change it, and cannot see the logic hidden in a 250 line monster of a method.
Whenever you can, pull some code out of the main class, and into a helper or factory class.
foreach (var item in Items)
{
//.. 100 lines of validation and data logic..
}
is not as readable as
foreach (var item in Items)
{
if (ValidatorClass.Validate(item))
RepositoryClass.Update(item);
}
My $0.02 anyways.
This was talked about on Coding Horror.
My personal belief is that is that they are useful, but like anything in excess can be too much.
I use it to order my code blocks into:
Enumerations
Declarations
Constructors
Methods
Event Handlers
Properties
Sometimes you might find yourself working on a team where #regions are encouraged or required. If you're like me and you can't stand messing around with folded code you can turn off outlining for C#:
Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> Advanced Tab
Uncheck "Enter outlining mode when files open"
I use #Region to hide ugly and useless automatically generated code, which really belongs in the automatically generated part of the partial class. But, when working with old projects or upgraded projects, you don't always have that luxury.
As for other types of folding, I fold Functions all the time. If you name the function well, you will never have to look inside unless you're testing something or (re-)writing it.
While I understand the problem that Jeff, et. al. have with regions, what I don't understand is why hitting CTRL+M,CTRL+L to expand all regions in a file is so difficult to deal with.
I use Textmate (Mac only) which has Code folding and I find it really useful for folding functions, I know what my "getGet" function does, I don't need it taking up 10 lines of oh so valuable screen space.
I never use it to hide a for loop, if statement or similar unless showing the code to someone else where I will hide code they have seen to avoid showing the same code twice.
I prefer partial classes as opposed to regions.
Extensive use of regions by others also give me the impression that someone, somewhere, is violating the Single Responsibility Principle and is trying to do too many things with one object.
#Tom
Partial classes are provided so that you can separate tool auto-generated code from any customisations you may need to make after the code gen has done its bit. This means your code stays intact after you re-run the codegen and doesn't get overwritten. This is a good thing.
I'm not a fan of partial classes - I try to develop my classes such that each class has a very clear, single issue for which it's responsible. To that end, I don't believe that something with a clear responsibility should be split across multiple files. That's why I don't like partial classes.
With that said, I'm on the fence about regions. For the most part, I don't use them; however, I work with code every day that includes regions - some people go really heavy on them (folding up private methods into a region and then each method folded into its own region), and some people go light on them (folding up enums, folding up attributes, etc). My general rule of thumb, as of now, is that I only put code in regions if (a) the data is likely to remain static or will not be touched very often (like enums), or (b) if there are methods that are implemented out of necessity because of subclassing or abstract method implementation, but, again, won't be touched very often.
Regions must never be used inside methods. They may be used to group methods but this must be handled with extreme caution so that the reader of the code does not go insane. There is no point in folding methods by their modifiers. But sometimes folding may increase readability. For e.g. grouping some methods that you use for working around some issues when using an external library and you won't want to visit too often may be helpful. But the coder must always seek for solutions like wrapping the library with appropriate classes in this particular example. When all else fails, use folding for improving readibility.
This is just one of those silly discussions that lead to nowhere. If you like regions, use them. If you don't, configure your editor to turn them off. There, everybody is happy.
I generally find that when dealing with code like Events in C# where there's about 10 lines of code that are actually just part of an event declaration (the EventArgs class the delegate declaration and the event declaration) Putting a region around them and then folding them out of the way makes it a little more readable.
Region folding would be fine if I didn't have to manually maintain region groupings based on features of my code that are intrinsic to the language. For example, the compiler already knows it's a constructor. The IDE's code model already knows it's a constructor. But if I want to see a view of the code where the constructors are grouped together, for some reason I have to restate the fact that these things are constructors, by physically placing them together and then putting a group around them. The same goes for any other way of slicing up a class/struct/interface. What if I change my mind and want to see the public/protected/private stuff separated out into groups first, and then grouped by member kind?
Using regions to mark out public properties (for example) is as bad as entering a redundant comment that adds nothing to what is already discernible from the code itself.
Anyway, to avoid having to use regions for that purpose, I wrote a free, open source Visual Studio 2008 IDE add-in called Ora. It provides a grouped view automatically, making it far less necessary to maintain physical grouping or to use regions. You may find it useful.
I think that it's a useful tool, when used properly. In many cases, I feel that methods and enumerations and other things that are often folded should be little black boxes. Unless you must look at them for some reason, their contents don't matter and should be as hidden as possible. However, I never fold private methods, comments, or inner classes. Methods and enums are really the only things I fold.
My approach is similar to a few others here, using regions to organize code blocks into constructors, properties, events, etc.
There's an excellent set of VS.NET macros by Roland Weigelt available from his blog entry, Better Keyboard Support for #region ... #endregion. I've been using these for years, mapping ctrl+. to collapse the current region and ctrl++ to expand it. Find that it works a lot better that the default VS.NET functionality which folds/unfolds everything.
I personally use #Regions all the time. I find that it helps me to keep things like properties, declarations, etc separated from each other.
This is probably a good answer, too!
Coding Horror
Edit: Dang, Pat beat me to this!
The Coding Horror article actual got me thinking about this as well.
Generally, I large classes I will put a region around the member variables, constants, and properties to reduce the amount of text I have to scroll through and leave everything else outside of a region. On forms I will generally group things into "member variables, constants, and properties", form functions, and event handlers. Once again, this is more so I don't have to scroll through a lot of text when I just want to review some event handlers.
I prefer #regions myself, but an old coworker couldn't stand to have things hidden. I understood his point once I worked on a page with 7 #regions, at least 3 of which had been auto-generated and had the same name, but in general I think they're a useful way of splitting things up and keeping everything less cluttered.
I really don't have a problem with using #region to organize code. Personally, I'll usually setup different regions for things like properties, event handlers, and public/private methods.
Eclipse does some of this in Java (or PHP with plugins) on its own. Allows you to fold functions and such. I tend to like it. If I know what a function does and I am not working on it, I dont need to look at it.
Emacs has a folding minor mode, but I only fire it up occasionally. Mostly when I'm working on some monstrosity inherited from another physicist who evidently had less instruction or took less care about his/her coding practices.
Using regions (or otherwise folding code) should have nothing to do with code smells (or hiding them) or any other idea of hiding code you don't want people to "easily" see.
Regions and code folding is really all about providing a way to easily group sections of code that can be collapsed/folded/hidden to minimize the amount of extraneous "noise" around what you are currently working on. If you set things up correctly (meaning actually name your regions something useful, like the name of the method contained) then you can collapse everything except for the function you are currently editing and still maintain some level of context without having to actually see the other code lines.
There probably should be some best practice type guidelines around these ideas, but I use regions extensively to provide a standard structure to my code files (I group events, class-wide fields, private properties/methods, public properties/methods). Each method or property also has a region, where the region name is the method/property name. If I have a bunch of overloaded methods, the region name is the full signature and then that entire group is wrapped in a region that is just the function name.
I personally hate regions. The only code that should be in regions in my opinion is generated code.
When I open file I always start with Ctrl+M+O. This folds to method level. When you have regions you see nothing but region names.
Before checking in I group methods/fields logically so that it looks ok after Ctrl+M+O.
If you need regions you have to much lines in your class. I also find that this is very common.
region ThisLooksLikeWellOrganizedCodeBecauseIUseRegions
// total garbage, no structure here
endregion
Enumerations
Properties
.ctors
Methods
Event Handlers
That's all I use regions for. I had no idea you could use them inside of methods.
Sounds like a terrible idea :)
Related
i'm currently working on a big projekt and i loose many time searching the right thing in the code. i need to get e.g. a method which makes someting special. so i scroll the whole code.
are there any common and effective methods to struct a file of code? e.g.
1. all global variables
2. constructor etc.
3. all methods
4. all event handlers
do you know common methods to do this??
It's more usual to break large projects into several source files, with logically related functionality. This helps with speeding up compilation and reducing coupling in your design as well as helping you navigate the code.
An example might be to have separate files for
UI functionality
helper classes (such as geometric/maths stuff)
file I/O
core functionality that connects the rest together
Design is a large topic, the book Code Complete by Steve McConnell might be a good starting point for you.
You shouldnt use global variables :)
Try spreading things out over different classes and files. Maks sure each class has only one purpose, instead of 1 class that manages a whole lot of different tasks.
That sounds like a sensible enough structure to me, what would really benefit you though is learning to use the tools you have available — whatever editor you're using it will have a search function, you can use that to quickly find what you're looking for.
Some editors will also include bookmarks too, and most offer a way to move back and forward through recent positions in the file.
Seen this sort of things started, never seen it kept on under the pressure to turn out code though.
Basically my rule of thumb is, if I feel the need to do this, break the code file up.
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Closed 12 years ago.
Personally I can't stand region tags, but clearly they have wide spread appeal for organizing code, so I want to test the temperature of the water for other MS developer's take on this idea.
My personal feeling is that any sort of silly trick to simplify code only acts to encourage terrible coding behavior, like lack of cohesion, unclear intention and poor or incomplete coding standards.
One programmer told me that code regions helped encourage coding standards by making it clear where another programmer should put his or her contributions.
But, to be blunt, this sounds like a load of horse manure to me. If you have a standard, it is the programmer's job to understand what that standard is... you should't need to define it in every single class file.
And, nothing is more annoying than having all of your code collapsed when you open a file. I know that cntrl + M, L will open everything up, but then you have the hideous "hash region definition" open and closing lines to read.
They're just irritating.
My most stead fast coding philosophy is that all programmer should strive to create clear, concise and cohesive code. Region tags just serve to create noise and redundant intentions.
Region tags would be moot in a well thought out and intentioned class.
The only place they seem to make sense to me, is in automatically generated code, because you should never have to read that outside of personal curiosity.
I like regions, and use them all the time. I use them to group members of the same kind inside classes.
You already have the means to collapse methods, classes and namespaces in the editor. Regions give you an option to create another level that lets you arrange the code in a way that corresponds to what you think is important.
StyleCop doesn't like regions:
SA1124: DoNotUseRegions
Cause
The C# code contains a region.
Rule Description
A violation of this rule occurs whenever a region is placed anywhere within the code. In many editors, including Visual Studio, the region will appear collapsed by default, hiding the code within the region. It is generally a bad practice to hide code, as this can lead to bad decisions as the code is maintained over time.
How to Fix Violations
To fix a violation of this rule, remove the region from the code.
There is some discussion about whether or not this is a reasonable rule.
The consensus seems to be that some people like regions and some people don't - it is up to individual teams to decide. The most important thing is to use a consistent style throughout your project.
One place where regions might be acceptable is to group all the methods that implement a particular interface. It is worth noting that Visual Studio automatically adds a region if you use the code generation feature to provide method stubs for implementing an interface.
The only place they seem to make sense to me, is in automatically generated code, because you should never have to read that outside of personal curiosity.
The partial class feature is better for separating automatically generated code from manually generated code within the same class.
When working with automatically generated source, code can be added to the class without having to recreate the source file. Visual Studio uses this approach when it creates Windows Forms, Web service wrapper code, and so on. You can create code that uses these classes without having to modify the file created by Visual Studio.
I think that #region is perfectly fine. I've never used it myself, but if you have a large or complex class, it can help with finding what you're looking for. Imagine if you're implementing ID3D10Device1- that's over a hundred methods to implement. You want to just throw them all in one place?
I do use regions to organize bigger constructs in a class, ie. a Dependency Property with callback and methods getting called by this, eg. you have a DP that takes an IEnumerable<T>, and you want to use the weak event pattern to respond to INotifyCollectionChanged. This can take some code, and as I won't be touching it after coding it, I put it in a region.
However, if you resort to regions to structure your logic, this is severe code smell and that's what the StyleCop rule in Mark's post is pointing hat.
while I am programming I use regions a lot they help me keeping my code organised and be able to focus only on parts I care. I always add comments on the regions and what are they about .But when I am done I am always removing them. Its a handy tool, that's all.
IHMO, if you have #region section in a class, it means that you have two behaviors in your class and so you should split your class in two objects.
One thing that constantly causing me headache in programming is when I don't have any naming-convention in a domain where I have to deal with a lot elements. It is clearly what is happening to me when using UI designers such as Windows Forms designer.
Everytime I start a new project I am trying to reinvent a "seem-strong" naming convention but it always fail at some points. For me there is 2 main problems compared to classic code definition for naming GUI elements:
You have to place a lot of variables (GUI elements) which can all be accessed in the same scope, so you need to have to a strong naming convention to find quickly the right element.
You often need to access to a specific type of GUI control (ex: TextBox, Label, ...), so the best solution for GUI elements is to name them after their types (Hungarian style notation), which can be sometimes confusing and not helping in finding the right element quickly.
If someone has a documentation describing a good convention or a strong convention he invented for its own project, I would really like to know it!
NB: I did not classified this question under .NET or Windows Forms tags has it seems applicable to a lot of frameworks. If not, let me know.
EDIT:
In fact the convention I most use is using a reversed hungarian notation (meaning the type comes first) followed by a path based on the UI elements hierarchy. For example, to easily access to a TextBox which belongs to the "Settings" tab of my program I would call it this way:
this.tb_settingTab_xxx
My problem using this convention is that it is not perfect and sometimes fails when you have a UI element that belongs to another which also belongs to another which also belongs to ...
I am really searching for is the unbreakable and handy naming-convention. I am quitely surprised that Microsoft never gaved any guidelines concerning this. Or am I going wrong? (ie. Mark Rushakoff comment).
There are various naming conventions described in this post. The key is to remain consistent throughout the project. I deal with a lot of controls, but find it straightforward to label them based on what they are. Textbox = tbMyControl, Label = lblMyControl. The 'MyControl' bit might be the same if they relate to similar aspects (e.g. tbUsername, lblUsername). However, there's no confusion on what I'm accessing. If you find you're getting confused, then maybe you're trying too many different notations? Keep it simple and logical.
Note: I use the following in code that covers - and sometimes mixes - "raw" Win32, ATL/WTL and MFC, so don't take it literally, only the principle. (Also, be forgiving on the m_)
I use a two-letter-shortcut for standard control types, followed by the name which resembles the functionality of the control (in most cases, Identical / close to the label). The name of related controls needs to match of course - e.g.
CStatic m_stBasePath;
CEdit m_edBasePath;
CButton m_cbBrowseBasePath;
It's not perfect for all scenarios, but generally I'd say a dialog where this isn't good enough anymore might have to many controls for the user already.
I've written three paragraphs that could be titled "details and defense" - and subsequently deleted them, since there's a very clear essence:
Consistency.
I mostly use the dialog resource itself for orientation, and have strict equivalence between resource ID's and associated members. So the "Base path" - related controls aren#t together in an alphabetic order, but I rarely see this as a problem.
The standard control type already contains very obvious information about functionaltiy of a control - a checkbox to enable / disable a group of features or for a boolean option, an edit or drop down to enter/select a value, a button to open a sub dialog, a static control for the label, etc.
I'm not sure how this style transfers if you transfer it to a platform with much more controls or when you use a lot of custom controls, as my WinForms projects have been comparedly small.
What are the best ways to improve the standards of coding-styles at a company? Let's use C# as an example here.
I guess there are many differences between developers that need to be taken into consideration. The concrete ones could be education, experience and past programming-languages.
How does one justify that something is right over something else?
One person may say "I move my body to the place where I earn my money with my 4-wheeled vehicle". So why is it more "right" to say "I drive to work in my car"?
Some people might like code more explicit with more lines of code. Some might like more tight code.
// Explicit
string text = defaultValue;
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text)) {
text = fallbackValue;
}
// Tighter
string text = defaultValue ?? fallbackValue;
Or the old protective programming-style, where you check for error-cases in the beginning and not wrap the whole method body inside a positive if-clause:
public string ChangeText(string text)
{
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
{
// Do a lot of stuff
}
else {
throw new Exception();
}
}
// vs.
public string ChangeText(string text)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text)) {
throw new Exception();
}
// Do a lot of stuff
}
Is the old "I'm having troubles reading this code" valid here? It's the same situation that was when Generics was introduced to C#, people had an initial trouble reading it.
Where is the line drawn between unreadable code and code that some developers are not used to?
Which part of Phil Haacks "7 Stages of new language keyword grief" has valid points here?
Are there any easy ways to set coding-standards and uphold them in a company?
UPDATE: Take in consideration things like variable-naming, that can't really be defined in a document. Or can it?
The easiest way to set coding-standards at a company:
Create a Standards Document and enforce it.
...people love to complain about code quality, but few will sit down and take the time to create a standards document. It's worth the effort and as long as you can enforce it (code reviews, etc.) then you're bound to notice an improvement in your code.
You always can use free tools like StyleCop from Microsoft.
You can disable or modify rules you don't like
There are two main sides of coding style:
"Where do I put the opening brace?" type issues - These are usually unimportant, i.e. there are no real reasons to prefer one style over the other.
Actual coding rules, like do we use return's in the middle of a function.
The way I see it, for #1 type issues, there is no point in any debate. Just set a standard in a standards document, and enforce it (more on this later).
As for the second issue, I'm honestly not sure whether it should be regulater. I personally love sprinkling functions with return values to check for error conditions, and I know some people who cringe at the practice. But at the end of the day, we can usually read each other's code just fine. These kinds of issues are much more about how you prefer expressing yourself, what is easier for you to write, and I wouldn't want a company making rules that get to this level.
As for how to enforce things, standards documents are good, but in my experience, are just never read or followed closely, and are soon forgotten. The best way is to have some kind of automated tool which tells you that you're violating the standard.
For example, even as a completely new Java programmer, I knew when to uppercase/lowercase my identifiers, simply because Eclipse let me (quietly, unobtrusively) know what the standard is.
First, you will always have to enforce the coding styles - there will never be a consent.
That's, why I would try to automate the check for consistency. Depending on your language you can use StyleCop (for .Net) or something like indent under linux.
Every developer can work with his own code style in his environment (the reformat can be very easy, depending on your environment), but all checked-in code has to be of the company's style.
Which style do you choose? Well, often there are already popular styles - depending on the language. For your example (C#) I would choose the Microsoft style. At last: only the project manager (senior programmer) has the right to adjust it.
Most companies use Coding-Style-Guidelines/Conventions. These are documents telling that you should always do braces around the if body even for one command, that you should indent with tabs/spaces, and so on.
There are a lot of tools for (automatically) check and enforce the coding-style. (An example for the java-world is checkstyle, which can be integrated into eclipse and also in a continuous integration solution like 'hudson'.)
How does one justify that something is
right over something else?
Easy: just don't. Pick a coding style, communicate it, and enforce it.
I think consistency is important here. There's not a lot of point in getting into a semantic debate over which way is better than the other unless the current methodology is particularly bad.
What is important is that the team writes their code consistently so that if someone resigns or gets hit by a bus then his/her colleagues know what is going on with the code when they are forced to work with it.
I am writing a coding standards document for a team of about 15 developers with a project load of between 10 and 15 projects a year. Amongst other sections (which I may post here as I get to them) I am writing a section on code formatting. So to start with, I think it is wise that, for whatever reason, we establish some basic, consistent code formatting/naming standards.
I've looked at roughly 10 projects written over the last 3 years from this team and I'm, obviously, finding a pretty wide range of styles. Contractors come in and out and at times, and sometimes even double the team size.
I am looking for a few suggestions for code formatting and naming standards that have really paid off ... but that can also really be justified. I think consistency and shared-patterns go a long way to making the code more maintainable ... but, are there other things I ought to consider when defining said standards?
How do you lineup parenthesis? Do you follow the same parenthesis guidelines when dealing with classes, methods, try catch blocks, switch statements, if else blocks, etc.
Do you line up fields on a column? Do you notate/prefix private variables with an underscore? Do you follow any naming conventions to make it easier to find particulars in a file? How do you order the members of your class?
What about suggestions for namespaces, packaging or source code folder/organization standards? I tend to start with something like:
<com|org|...>.<company>.<app>.<layer>.<function>.ClassName
I'm curious to see if there are other, more accepted, practices than what I am accustomed to -- before I venture off dictating these standards. Links to standards already published online would be great too -- even though I've done a bit of that already.
First find a automated code-formatter that works with your language. Reason: Whatever the document says, people will inevitably break the rules. It's much easier to run code through a formatter than to nit-pick in a code review.
If you're using a language with an existing standard (e.g. Java, C#), it's easiest to use it, or at least start with it as a first draft. Sun put a lot of thought into their formatting rules; you might as well take advantage of it.
In any case, remember that much research has shown that varying things like brace position and whitespace use has no measurable effect on productivity or understandability or prevalence of bugs. Just having any standard is the key.
Coming from the automotive industry, here's a few style standards used for concrete reasons:
Always used braces in control structures, and place them on separate lines. This eliminates problems with people adding code and including it or not including it mistakenly inside a control structure.
if(...)
{
}
All switches/selects have a default case. The default case logs an error if it's not a valid path.
For the same reason as above, any if...elseif... control structures MUST end with a default else that also logs an error if it's not a valid path. A single if statement does not require this.
In the occasional case where a loop or control structure is intentionally empty, a semicolon is always placed within to indicate that this is intentional.
while(stillwaiting())
{
;
}
Naming standards have very different styles for typedefs, defined constants, module global variables, etc. Variable names include type. You can look at the name and have a good idea of what module it pertains to, its scope, and type. This makes it easy to detect errors related to types, etc.
There are others, but these are the top off my head.
-Adam
I'm going to second Jason's suggestion.
I just completed a standards document for a team of 10-12 that work mostly in perl. The document says to use "perltidy-like indentation for complex data structures." We also provided everyone with example perltidy settings that would clean up their code to meet this standard. It was very clear and very much industry-standard for the language so we had great buyoff on it by the team.
When setting out to write this document, I asked around for some examples of great code in our repository and googled a bit to find other standards documents that smarter architects than I to construct a template. It was tough being concise and pragmatic without crossing into micro-manager territory but very much worth it; having any standard is indeed key.
Hope it works out!
It obviously varies depending on languages and technologies. By the look of your example name space I am going to guess java, in which case http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/ is a really good place to start. You might also want to look at something like maven's standard directory structure which will make all your projects look similar.