I’ll certainly give the whole thing a lot more thought. Whereas before, I’d automatically line up a set of 5-6 assignment statements, I’ll now give thought to whether they’re all logically related and whether I’m obscuring anything.

As to the subject at hand, I will admit that, for some unknown reason, the “lined up” method annoys me as I’m writing code. I think perhaps it’s the extra work that it takes to get it just right. I’ve reached the point where even reading “lined up” code bugs me a bit. Weird, huh? However, sometimes I find myself using the “lined up” method, especially if a fellow programmer used it in the same project. I guess I’m a conformist.

I’m interested in reading more of this chapter, such that I’ll be able to defend my tendency to avoid lining things up!

I’m with you, naming a method the same way you would name a variable makes a TON of sense. That way, it can be either a variable or a method. The person doesn’t need to know unless they need to know. Even if a method is only called from one place, I think it’s always good to pull out 3-5 lines from a larger method, using a good name to clarify the intent of that section of code. While it does make the rabbit hole deeper, it helps explain the concepts and keep the levels of abstraction right.

If it were me, my goal would be to remove the comment “# Determine how many columns the table will have” by naming the “total_compare_table_columns” something that makes that intent clear. Would you agree? Does that jive with what you know from Clean Code?

The code is a bit out of context, so it’s hard for me to say what exactly fits in, but would it be confusing to just call the method “number_of_columns” or “number_of_comparison_columns”? It seems to me that using method names that sound like they could be variable names is almost a Ruby idiom, but perhaps I’m exposing my ignorance, and it’s actually a bad practice. What do you think?

Write up your journey so we can all follow along!

My post was probably a bit too focused on one side of the equation. At the time, I was in a position to give input on the compensation of another person. That’s a hard thing to do. I felt that I needed to strip away some of the subjectivity to arrive at a starting point for discussion.

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts!