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What are your programming hot takes? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] 13 points 3 years ago* (14 children)

Except i right? Something like counter or index seems unconventional and unnecessarily verbose

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Yeah, but it's easy to overuse it. If your for loop is much longer. For a few lines I'd agree, don't bother using something longer.

    Code should scream out it's intent for the reader to see. It's why you are doing something that needs to be communicated, not what you are doing. "i", "counter" or "index" all scream out what you are doing, not why. This is more important than the name being short (but for equal explanations of intent, go with the shorter name). The for loop does that already.

    If you can't do that, be more precise. At the least make it "cardIndex", or "searchIndex". It makes it easier to connect the dots.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    Index can be useful but start looking for mapping and sorting functions. Or foreach. If you really must index, sure go use index or I if it's conventionally understood. But reading something like for I in e where p == r.status is really taxing to make sense of

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    Honest question: is there a mapping function that handles the case where you need to loop through an iterable, and conditionally reference an item one or two steps ahead in the iterable?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Not that I'm aware of but that's a condition where you're thinking with an index. What's the difference you're looking for?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Something like parsing a string that could have command codes in it of varying length. So I guess the difference is, is this a 1-, 2-, or 3-character code?

    I have something like this in a barcode generator and I keep trying to find a way to make it more elegant, but I keep coming back to index and offset as the simplest and most understandable approach.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    In js there's reduce. Something like

    arr.reduce((result, currentValue, currentIndex, original) => {
if(currentIndex < original.length - 2
    && original[currentIndendex + 2] % 2 === 0 ) {
    result.push(currentValue / 2) 
} else { 
    result.push(currentValue);
}
return result;
}, [])

    This would map arr and return halved values for elements for which the element two steps ahead is even. This should be available in languages where map is present. And sorry for possible typos, writing this on mobile.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (4 children)

    Oh yeah, I map, filter and reduce pretty much everywhere I can. But sometimes you need the index and i is so commonly understood to be that, I'd say it could even be less legible to deviate from that convention

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (3 children)

    In what world is

    for (int index = 0; index < objectToIterate; index++)
{
    // DO YO THANG
}

    less coherent than

    for (int i; i < objectToIterate; i++)
{
    // DO YO THANG
}
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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    The world where the convention is i

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    What's incoherent about the first one? Why is index bad beyond standards

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    It's not incoherent, it just takes a tiny bit more effort to mentally parse as it's not a stereotypical for loop. Maybe it's just me, but let me try and explain

    With the i example if you're familiar enough with a language, your brain will gloss over the unimportant syntax, you go straight to the comparison and then whether it's incrementing or decrementing.

    With the other example, the first my brain did was notice it's not following convention, which then pushes me to read the line carefully as there is probably a reason it doesn't.

    I'm not saying it's a huge difference or anything, but following code conventions like this makes things like code reviews much easier cumulatively.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    I'd say except indices in general. Just bloats every line where you need to use them. Imagine writing CUDA C++ where you regularly add and multiply stuff and every number is referenced via (usually) 1-3 indices. Horrible.

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