I 💓 Antipatterns

December 16, 2020

I was reading JuliaLang Antipatterns by Lyndon White.

I’m a guilty man. STB violates (at least) two of these antipatterns pretty consistently.

Dr. White knows more about Julia than I do, and likely ever will. But on these

Over-constraining argument types

Dr. White writes:

I will begin with a bold claim: Type constraints in Julia are only for dispatch. If you don’t have multiple methods for a function, you don’t need any type-constraints. If you must add type-constraints (for dispatch) do so as loosely as possible. I will justify this claim in the following sections.

Applications vs libraries

Ideal organisation - non programming specialists on a spectrum

why not programming specialists plus subject specialists

Defensive programming - spreadsheet error examples

IFS Taxben example - programmer proof.

So - case for strong(ish) possible typing. Can’t rely on comments. Building data structures.

Difference from library/compiler code.

trade-offs

• between generality and clarity - more clarity for an application
• speed and accuracy no trade off and likely fewer eyes on the code

clarity -