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  3. Not programming, but a preference question.

Not programming, but a preference question.

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  • L Lost User

    Hmmm pretty sure it is fine. For one they are not subclasses. They are classes within a namespace. This is a common confliction when working with many groups or using external resources, E.g Company a has "Camera" in their library as well as company B. So we end up with CompanyA.Camera And CompanyB.Camera For objects. That was actually the point that you must then call out the whole namespace multiple times. Or am I missing something that you are pointing out?

    Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.

    B Offline
    B Offline
    BillWoodruff
    wrote on last edited by
    #52

    Compile it, and look at the errors. best, Bill

    "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux

    F L 2 Replies Last reply
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    • T TheRealRarius

      ARGH!!!!!!! At the risk of starting another strongly-typed/weakly-typed language debate, the very concept of "var" should be excised from human history. "var" is uncontrolled polymorphism at its worst (polymorphism is great, but it must be used carefully). It's lazy and dangerous and I hate the fact that I have to use it when I use Linq.

      F Offline
      F Offline
      Fabio Franco
      wrote on last edited by
      #53

      I couldn't have put it better. You lifted a very heavy burden off my chest.

      To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

      1 Reply Last reply
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      • N Nagy Vilmos

        Use Application Hungarian[^]. The prefix is what the variable is for rather than what it is:

        var codeCurrency; // the code for the currency, eg USD
        var nameCurrency; // the name for the currency, eg Green Back

        Personally, I'd try and get rid of non-explicit declarations where you can and only resort to Apps Hungarian when you have to use vars.


        Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett

        W Offline
        W Offline
        wizardzz
        wrote on last edited by
        #54

        Nagy, thank you. I did not know the name for this, so I initially referred to it as just HN. This is exactly what I want the junior developers to start doing when we must use vars (among other things, LINQ conditions passed to API happens a lot here, too). (The one that did this is a director, but of SQL related stuff, codingwise, he's a junior).

        1 Reply Last reply
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        • B BillWoodruff

          My 2 cents (farthings, groats, obeloi) worth: While MS pronouncements on use of 'var have often mentioned the "economy" of not having to enter the fully qualified name of some object twice: imho, the major usage has been associated with conveniently storing the result of some LINQ-produced complex entity that you could break a tooth on trying to specify its exact type. ... begin edit #1 ... And, I forgot to say using 'var for "anonymous types" is required ! ... end edit #1 ... We've always had ways to shorten up long fully-qualified object names using the "using directive:" as in the "extreme" example offered here:

          using System;
          using spc1 = ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent1;
          using spc2 = DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent2;

          namespace ThirdPartyNameSpace
          {
          // used internal here just for the 'hell' of it ...
          internal class RequiredComponent1
          {
          }
          }

          namespace DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace
          {
          internal class RequiredComponent2
          {
          }
          }

          namespace Local
          {
          class Thingamajig
          {
          spc1 s1ReqComponent = new spc1();

              spc2 s2ReqComponent = new spc2();
          }
          

          }

          Note that I am not advocating you should code this way, and, in actual practice, I usually use this only when using a 3rd. party component that really requires complex multi-dot path names to use the most commonly used elements in it. And, in that case, I would use variable names that were, indeed, mnemonic (which is not what you see here). best, Bill

          "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux

          W Offline
          W Offline
          wizardzz
          wrote on last edited by
          #55

          That is interesting, Bill. I think that is not a bad idea for 3rd party API's. It's something I've come across, but not done myself, so it never really made it into my library of knowledge.

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          • L Lost User

            I do not see why people get hung up on var. (I am quite certain I will ge downvoted for this post) IMO it is cleaner.

            namespace ThirdPartynamespace
            {
            class RequiredComponent
            {
            }
            }

            ...

            namespace DifferentThirdPartyNamespace
            {
            class RequiredComponent
            {
            }
            }

            namespace Local
            {
            class Thingamajig
            {
            var component = new ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();
            var diffComponent = new DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();
            //vs

              ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent ewComponent = new ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();
            
             DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent ewDiffComponent = new DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();
            

            }
            }

            Ok, so now you will say that is a rare case. Maybe it is but because this case happens (actually it happens to me alot but mostly because how I use namespaces), you should follow patterns being set. You may not be always worried about thread mishaps but you still program for it. Other reasons: Return object changes.

            Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.

            F Offline
            F Offline
            Fabio Franco
            wrote on last edited by
            #56

            Collin Jasnoch wrote:

            var component = new ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent(); var diffComponent = new DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();

            I read this and thought: "What the hell is the type returned by this methods?" "Oh wait, these are not methods, these are fully qualified types." Can you picture the ammount of unnecessary confusion created by this code when someone else try to read it? Or even your self after sometime? This easy to write and terrible to read. If you inherit a code that has a lot of vars good luck sweeping the code to understand its purpose. If you have a printed copy of the code, well then there is no way to understand the code.

            Collin Jasnoch wrote:

            ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent ewComponent = new ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();

            That's what the "#using" directive is for, then you would have:

            RequiredComponent notEwAtAllComponent = new RequiredComponent()

            Now you have a very readable code and intellisense made it not hard to type, magic heh? When looking at the code from a mostly left to right culture I can instantly identify the type being declared. Second, if you have components with same names and different namespaces, you can make it much shorter also with the "#using" directive: #using ThirdPartyNameSpace; #using diffNS = DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace;

            diffNS.RequiredComponent diffComponent = diffNS.RequiredComponent();

            Lastly, var should be used for anonymous types. That's the real good use of it and shouldn't be abused like I often see. Your particular example is a hell to review.

            To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

            Richard DeemingR L 2 Replies Last reply
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            • L Lost User

              Hmmm pretty sure it is fine. For one they are not subclasses. They are classes within a namespace. This is a common confliction when working with many groups or using external resources, E.g Company a has "Camera" in their library as well as company B. So we end up with CompanyA.Camera And CompanyB.Camera For objects. That was actually the point that you must then call out the whole namespace multiple times. Or am I missing something that you are pointing out?

              Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.

              F Offline
              F Offline
              Fabio Franco
              wrote on last edited by
              #57

              See how var can be a source of confusion?

              To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

              L 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • B BillWoodruff

                Compile it, and look at the errors. best, Bill

                "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux

                F Offline
                F Offline
                Fabio Franco
                wrote on last edited by
                #58

                There are no errors, just confusion for the abuse of var keyword. The types instantiated are fully qualified types, you just don't see them in the left hand side because the var keyword was used.

                To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                B 1 Reply Last reply
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                • T TheRealRarius

                  ARGH!!!!!!! At the risk of starting another strongly-typed/weakly-typed language debate, the very concept of "var" should be excised from human history. "var" is uncontrolled polymorphism at its worst (polymorphism is great, but it must be used carefully). It's lazy and dangerous and I hate the fact that I have to use it when I use Linq.

                  A Offline
                  A Offline
                  AspDotNetDev
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #59

                  Not sure what you mean. Using "var" in C# does not make thigns weakly typed. The variable is still strongly typed at compile time... the type is just inferred.

                  Thou mewling ill-breeding pignut!

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • T TheRealRarius

                    ARGH!!!!!!! At the risk of starting another strongly-typed/weakly-typed language debate, the very concept of "var" should be excised from human history. "var" is uncontrolled polymorphism at its worst (polymorphism is great, but it must be used carefully). It's lazy and dangerous and I hate the fact that I have to use it when I use Linq.

                    I Offline
                    I Offline
                    IAbstract
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #60

                    I'm not near as stringent on the use of `var`. If my data types are short - e.g., string, int, List(Of T) - I use the explicit syntax for declaring the type. On the other hand, something like

                    Dictionary>

                    ...damned right I'm using `var`. It's up to the developer to make sure the variable name is meaningful - not the declaration of the data type. Yes, be responsible with the use of `var`. `var` is necessary in a few cases - as with LINQ and anonymous types. Make sure if you want an `IFoo` from a method that returns `Foo` that you cast it:

                    var foo = GetFoo() as IFoo;

                    // where GetFoo():
                    Foo GetFoo() {
                    return new Foo();
                    }

                    // and
                    class Foo : IFoo { }

                    I certainly don't recommend leaving fate in the hands of `var`. Overuse is abuse. And abusing `var` is downright lazy. But I wouldn't get that worked up about it - maybe. :-D

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                    • W wizardzz

                      Dang, maybe I should have clarified. I meant Hungarian Notation "style", not strictly varName, etc. Example:

                      var BeginDate = item.GetType().GetProperty("BeginDate");
                      var Locations = item.GetType().GetProperty("Locations");

                      I would prefer to be

                      var propBeginDate = item.GetType().GetProperty("BeginDate");
                      var propLocations = item.GetType().GetProperty("Locations");

                      or something like that. This is more of an example of what I meant. I guess I should have initially said, am I dick for changing variables to make more sense?

                      I Offline
                      I Offline
                      IAbstract
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #61

                      Actually, I think the first example is fine. Does it matter that `BeginDate` is a property?

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • E Espen Harlinn

                        I use Refactor! Pro[^]. Right click on the offending var declared varable and choose 'Make explicit' and there I have a decently declared varable. I'm pretty sure other refactoring tools have a similar feature.

                        Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile

                        I Offline
                        I Offline
                        IAbstract
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #62

                        DevEx/CodeRush will change from implicit (`var`) to explicit.

                        1 Reply Last reply
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                        • J Jani Giannoudis

                          var reminds me to VB's Dim and is - from the engineering perspective - a regression. For me it's a good practice to document/describe which type of variable you are working.

                          Cheers, Jani Giannoudis Meerazo.com - Resource Sharing Made Easy | Co-founder

                          I Offline
                          I Offline
                          IAbstract
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #63

                          Even when I was strictly VB, I hated 'Dim' ...I used Dim in my early days of Applesoft Basic when I was 11, IIRC.

                          1 Reply Last reply
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                          • F Fabio Franco

                            Collin Jasnoch wrote:

                            var component = new ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent(); var diffComponent = new DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();

                            I read this and thought: "What the hell is the type returned by this methods?" "Oh wait, these are not methods, these are fully qualified types." Can you picture the ammount of unnecessary confusion created by this code when someone else try to read it? Or even your self after sometime? This easy to write and terrible to read. If you inherit a code that has a lot of vars good luck sweeping the code to understand its purpose. If you have a printed copy of the code, well then there is no way to understand the code.

                            Collin Jasnoch wrote:

                            ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent ewComponent = new ThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();

                            That's what the "#using" directive is for, then you would have:

                            RequiredComponent notEwAtAllComponent = new RequiredComponent()

                            Now you have a very readable code and intellisense made it not hard to type, magic heh? When looking at the code from a mostly left to right culture I can instantly identify the type being declared. Second, if you have components with same names and different namespaces, you can make it much shorter also with the "#using" directive: #using ThirdPartyNameSpace; #using diffNS = DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace;

                            diffNS.RequiredComponent diffComponent = diffNS.RequiredComponent();

                            Lastly, var should be used for anonymous types. That's the real good use of it and shouldn't be abused like I often see. Your particular example is a hell to review.

                            To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                            Richard DeemingR Offline
                            Richard DeemingR Offline
                            Richard Deeming
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #64

                            How is:

                            diffNS.RequiredComponent diffComponent = new diffNS.RequiredComponent();
                            // WTF? I can't find the "diffNS" namespace anywhere in the code!
                            // Oh, wait - it's hidden in a "using" statement somewhere else in the file.
                            // I'll just scan *the entire file* to find out what it really is, then.

                            any easier to read than:

                            var diffComponent = new DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();
                            // What? .......... Ah, I see! It's a DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent

                            :confused:?


                            "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                            "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

                            F 1 Reply Last reply
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                            • F Fabio Franco

                              There are no errors, just confusion for the abuse of var keyword. The types instantiated are fully qualified types, you just don't see them in the left hand side because the var keyword was used.

                              To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                              B Offline
                              B Offline
                              BillWoodruff
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #65

                              Compile Colin's code "as is," and examine the errors. best, Bill

                              "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux

                              F 1 Reply Last reply
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                              • P PIEBALDconsult

                                ahmed zahmed wrote:

                                var should only be used where the type can be easily ascertained

                                No, that's wrong -- it should only be used when the developer can't know the type, as in

                                ahmed zahmed wrote:

                                when using LINQ

                                Richard DeemingR Offline
                                Richard DeemingR Offline
                                Richard Deeming
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #66

                                PIEBALDconsult wrote:

                                it should only be used when the developer can't know the type

                                No, that's wrong. ;P

                                // Wrong! BAD developer!
                                Dictionary<string, Tuple<Customer, List<Order>>> customerOrdersCache = new Dictionary<string, Tuple<Customer, List<Order>>>();

                                // Much better! Have a banana!
                                var customerOrdersCache = new Dictionary<string, Tuple<Customer, List<Order>>>();


                                "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                                "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

                                1 Reply Last reply
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                                • B BillWoodruff

                                  Compile Colin's code "as is," and examine the errors. best, Bill

                                  "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux

                                  F Offline
                                  F Offline
                                  Fabio Franco
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #67

                                  Yeah, I know, case sensitiveness typo on namespace, the ellipses... Way out of the scope of this discussion

                                  To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                                  B 1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • J jim lahey

                                    the thing that tells me that it's an implicitly typed local variable is the keyword var. I've got a VS extension (can't remember which one, sorry) that tells me the exact type when I hover over it with the mouse. As for naming conventions, I'm of the opinion that the name should semantically express the usage, so this would be totally fine with me:

                                    var count = 0;

                                    I can tell from the name what it's there for and by the assignment I can tell it's an int. I understand that some people might get confused by this:

                                    var count = someObject.GetCount();

                                    But all the above example means is that the above *might* be a short or long, and you can mouseover the method call in the assignment if you're desperate to know the exact type you're assigning. It's a whole number of some sort. If you're assigning anything other than int, short or long from a method called GetCount(), your method naming is wrong. Using a single byte to return a count is a bit of a special case which is why I haven't mentioned it. I've also never encountered a need to do so, incidentally. For some reason I get quite annoyed when people claim using var is bad practice because it introduces bugs to the code or don't get the fact that it's not the same as dynamic typing because they think it's the same as JavaScript. var works just fine, it means I don't repeat myself all over the place and is statically typed which means it won't even compile if I've done something wrong.

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                                    Ilka Guigova
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #68

                                    I agree with Jim. It's too bad that it seems so easy to confuse and make developers feel insecure with code. We spend more time looking for crutches than understanding the code abstractions and how to use them to our benefit.

                                    I would imagine if you could understand Morse Code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy. [Mitch Hedberg (American Comedian, 1968-2005)]

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                                    • Richard DeemingR Richard Deeming

                                      How is:

                                      diffNS.RequiredComponent diffComponent = new diffNS.RequiredComponent();
                                      // WTF? I can't find the "diffNS" namespace anywhere in the code!
                                      // Oh, wait - it's hidden in a "using" statement somewhere else in the file.
                                      // I'll just scan *the entire file* to find out what it really is, then.

                                      any easier to read than:

                                      var diffComponent = new DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent();
                                      // What? .......... Ah, I see! It's a DifferentThirdPartyNameSpace.RequiredComponent

                                      :confused:?


                                      "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                                      F Offline
                                      F Offline
                                      Fabio Franco
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #69

                                      Richard Deeming wrote:

                                      // Oh, wait - it's hidden in a "using" statement somewhere else in the file.

                                      Visual Studio: Right click -> Go to Definition Printed: It's the first thing you gonna see. Anyways, the worse case scenario here is when you find the necessity to fully qualify types for when you have same named classes over different namespaces within the same file. You gotta admit this is very rare. It happened to me only once with the Color and Report class. The latter was my mistake to use such a generic and and not descriptive class name on a big solution.

                                      To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                                      Richard DeemingR 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • F Fabio Franco

                                        Richard Deeming wrote:

                                        // Oh, wait - it's hidden in a "using" statement somewhere else in the file.

                                        Visual Studio: Right click -> Go to Definition Printed: It's the first thing you gonna see. Anyways, the worse case scenario here is when you find the necessity to fully qualify types for when you have same named classes over different namespaces within the same file. You gotta admit this is very rare. It happened to me only once with the Color and Report class. The latter was my mistake to use such a generic and and not descriptive class name on a big solution.

                                        To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                                        Richard DeemingR Offline
                                        Richard DeemingR Offline
                                        Richard Deeming
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #70

                                        Fabio Franco wrote:

                                        Visual Studio:
                                        Right click -> Go to Definition

                                        Yeah, that doesn't interfere with "sweeping the code to understand its purpose" at all! ;P It's easier to scan a "var x = new RealName()" statement than a "AliasedName x = new AliasedName()" statement.


                                        "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                                        "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

                                        F 1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • F Fabio Franco

                                          Yeah, I know, case sensitiveness typo on namespace, the ellipses... Way out of the scope of this discussion

                                          To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                                          B Offline
                                          B Offline
                                          BillWoodruff
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #71

                                          Hi Fabio, The two only really important errors relate to the incorrect usage of 'var: which is exactly what this topic is about ! best,Bill

                                          "The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness." Andre Malraux

                                          F 1 Reply Last reply
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