Monday 29 September 2008

Beautiful code

What is beatiful code? The shortest answer (which I've read somewhere but can't remember where) is:

we all know what "ugly code" is: code that someone else wrote...
But beautiful code? Isn't it in the eye of the beholder? Well, for me, beautiful equals readable. You have to see on the first sight what the overall idea of the piece of code is. On the other side, the idea itself might be crap (!!!) but then we should ask the next question: what is a beautiful design/architecture?

I, for my side, am thus a proponent of writing aesthetically appealing code. And I'm not alone! Read this:

Whether it is a natural occurrence, a quirk of human languages, or conditioning, most people find while (x==3) significantly simpler to read than while (3==x). Although neither is going to cause confusion, the latter tends to slow people down or interrupt their train of thought. In this book, we have favored readability over safety—but our situation is somewhat different than that of normal development. You will have to decide for yourself which convention suits you and your team better. *
Here we've got it: the eternal problem with the coding guidelines forcing me to write a plug-ugly (3==x)! The question is: should we write ugly code as to be on the safe side? I admit, that I never wrote such an ignominious line of code in my life. You expect trouble? Nope! I've never had any problems at this point! Well, one single time I mistyped it, but found it out in an instant! In C++ you have to develop certain sensitivity for that construct, that's all.

As for practical examples (instead of dull theoreticizing) - some time ago I asked myself: what is the most cool/beatiful piece of code you eve wrote, what would you show to others in order to impress them or to show them how crystal-clear ;-) your style is? As it was even before my lambda library, and only had plain production code on my disposal, I settled on the following piece:
/*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/ /**
* @brief configDelta
* @descr
* This function compares two configurations and returns the differences.
*
* @param[in] other - the other configuration
* @param[in] scope - what delta requested: all the new entries, all the deleted
* entries, or all changes altogether?
* @param[out] delta - the calculated diffrence
*
* @note Assumption: both configurations must be sorted!!!
*///--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

void SimpleCfgFile::configDelta(const SimpleCfgFile& other, CfgDelta scope,
vector<string*>& delta) const
{
TRACE_FUNC("SimpleCfgFile::configDelta");
delta.clear();

switch(scope)
{
case addedDelta:
TRACE_DEBUG("addedDelta");
// all in this but not in other:
set_difference(begin(), end(),
other.begin(), other.end(),
inserter(delta, delta.begin()),
less_then_deref<string*>());
break;

case removedDelta:
TRACE_DEBUG("removedDelta");
// all in other but not in this:
set_difference(other.begin(), other.end(),
begin(), end(),
inserter(delta, delta.begin()),
less_then_deref<string*>());
break;

case completeDelta:
TRACE_DEBUG("completeDelta");
// all in this but not in other + in other and not this:
set_symmetric_difference(begin(), end(),
other.begin(), other.end(),
inserter(delta, delta.begin()),
less_then_deref<string*>());
break;

default:
TRACE_ERR("Unknown scope requested for configuration delta!!!");
}

TRACE_VALUE(delta.size());
}
You see, it's not a rocket science. What I liked in this piece of code was it's conciseness, readibility and (though it's of no real importance for workings of the code) its symmetry. And moreover, I was amazed how a judicious usage of the standard library simplified the task which at first seemed to be rather a daunting one!

An lastly, it's an illustration for the fact that you don't have to use a lambda library to obtain a clear code: I just wrote the following trivial functor:
  template <class T> struct less_then_deref : binary_function<T,T,bool>
{
// OPEN TODO ---> constraint: isPtrType(T)...
bool operator() (const T& x, const T& y) const { return *x < *y; }
}
instead of the lambda expression (*$1 < *$2) and it is still readable. Or even more readable by using a telling name?

---
* taken from the following book: Groovy in Action, Dierk König et al., Manning 2007, page 157-158

Wednesday 17 September 2008

Google's technology stack

Well, I said I wouldn't write any knee-jerk reaction posts on this blog, only well thoght-through, throughly researched, and insightful entries. Certainly, I have some entries I should be rather working on, like mutithreading testing or lock-free synchronization... But I must admit, that was a bit over-optimistic, as you'll see in a second...

Recently, I stumbled across this one:
Google has recently launched the Google App Engine. From an Java enterprise developers point of view it is shamelessly easy to use, deploy, etc. Well, unfortunately it only takes Python apps for now, but it is stated that there will be more languages supported in the future. But it’s Google again putting its finger into the Java EE wound (first GWT with webapps, then Android shaking the Java ME world, and now App Engine showing how runtimes should look like).*
I blogged before about the "Google phone", which came out not as a phone, but as an SDK (BTW: do you want to make your 1st milion? Take part in the Android Developer Challenge, no kidding!). The local german "Java Magazin" published on this ocasion (i.e Android's release) an editorial, accusing Google of attacking Sun, Java, splitting the Javaland and whatever. What the fuss?

I cite Wkipedia**:
Dalvik is often referred to as a Java Virtual Machine, but this is not strictly accurate, as the bytecode on which it operates is not Java bytecode. Instead, a tool named dx, included in the Android SDK, transforms the Java Class files of Java classes compiled by a regular Java compiler into another class file format (the .dex format).
So you are writng Java code, but it's not running on the JVM! Is that forbidden?
"...some have related Dalvik to Microsoft's JVM and the lawsuit that Sun filed against Microsoft, wondering if a similar thing might happen with Google, while others have pointed out that Google is not claiming that Dalvik is a Java implementation, whereas Microsoft was."***
I don't know. But I think it shouldn't be!

Now for the Google App Engine. As I had a look at it some time ago, it didn't ring a bell with me. I rather though about it as of another grid computing offering, like Amazon's Elastic Cloud: just write your app locally and ther throw it on the grid and it will scale automatically with your needs. But when a Java person sees this, it sees Java technology attacked. The same for GWT: it is JSF as it should always has been. But come on, you are still writing your programms in Java, the difference is that the ideas don't come from Sun! I'd rather say Google is giving a second life to Java by providing new ways for using it. I wouldn't have though that 5 years ago, when they were essentially a C++/Pythonn shop!

Additionally, I can't help feeling that the Java poeople are thinking in an "imperialistic" way: boasting about their superiority, but on the other side always suspicious that someone may have try to challenge their (self proclaimed) supremacy. Like the late USSR...

But on the other side, when you look at Google, you could be tempted to think, that they are writing everything new: newly they published an own C++ test framework**** and an own (C++) transfer data encoding****, just as example. So maybe it's not an assault on Java iteself, but just a manifestation of the "Not Invented Here" syndrome? Now, the employees must do something in their 20% project-free time, so they programm every conceivable thing anew (and better?).

---
* http://adminsight.de/2008/05/05/springsource-announces-an-application-plattform/
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_virtual_machine
*** http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/11/dalvik
**** Google test framework: http://code.google.com/p/googletest/wiki/GoogleTestPrimer, Google transfer encoding: http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/docs/overview.html, and now they even wrote their own browser: Google Chrome (ok, you knew that already...)