From the performance point of view, which function definition is better/faster? Making an object and adding functions to that, or making functions one by one?
var myCollection:Object = {
first: function(variable:int):void {
},
second: function(variable:int):void {
}
}
myCollection.first(1);
or
private function first(variable:int):void {
}
private function second(variable:int):void {
}
first(1);
The latter. The performance hit will be negligible, except on a massive scale, but the second one will be slightly faster.
Basically it boils down to scope. To get a function from an object, you have to find the memory reference to the object within the scope of the class and then find the memory reference to the function within the scope of the object. With the second, you just have to find the Function object (all functions are objects) memory reference within the scope of the class.
The second method cuts out the middle man, essentially, in identifying the correct function. Now, each one will be found in less than a millisecond. As far as you are concerned, it is instant. But if you are doing this 100k times in a row? Yeah, you might see a bit of a performance boost by declaring within the class.
As an additional note, you are also adding another object to memory with the first one. Add enough of these (again, needs to be on a massive scale), and you will see a slowdown just from the superfluous objects stored in memory
You should also look at usability and readability, though. Declaring in an object means that the functions are not available as soon as the class is instantiated so you have to be careful you don't call the function before the object is instantiated. Additionally, you would lose code hinting and it is not the common way to write your code (meaning another dev, or even yourself a year from now, would have to figure out how it is working without any help from a hinter or from the standards they have already learned before they could do any modifications)
Related
I have created a class that I've been using as the storage for all listings in my applications. The class allows me to "sign" an object to a listing (which can be created on the fly via the sign() method like so):
manager.sign(myObject, "someList");
This stores the index of the element (using it's unique id) in the newly created or previously created listing "someList" as well as the object in a 2D array. So for example, I might end up with this:
trace(_indexes["someList"][objectId]); // 0 - the object is the first in this list
trace(_instances["someList"]); // [object MyObject]
The class has another two methods:
find(signature:String):Array
This method returns an array via slice() containing all of the elements signed with the given signature.
findFirst(signature:String):Object
This method just returns the first object in a given listing
So to retrieve myObject I can either go:
trace(find("someList")[0]); or trace(findFirst("someList"));
Finally, there is an unsign() function which will remove an object from a given listing. This function basically:
Stores the result of pop() in the specified listing against a variable.
Uses the stored index to quickly replace the specified object with the pop()'d item.
Deletes the stored index for the specified object and updates the index for the pop()'d item.
Through all this, using unsign() will remove an object extremely quickly from a listing of any size.
Now this is all well and good, but I've had some thoughts which are making me consider how good this really is? I mean being able to easily list, remove and access lists of anything I want throughout the application like this is awesome - but is there a catch?
A couple of starting thoughts I have had are:
So far I haven't implemented support for listings that are private and only accessible via a given class.
Memory - this doesn't seem very memory efficient. Then again, neither is creating arrays for everything I want to store individually either. Just seems.. Larger.. Somehow.
Any insights?
I've uploaded the class here in case the above doesn't make much sense: https://projectavian.com/AviManager.as
Your solution seems pretty solid. If you're looking to modify it to be a bit more extensible and handle rights management, you might consider moving all those individually indexed properties to a value object for your AV elements. You could perform operations like "sign" and "unsign" internally in the VOs, or check for access rights. Your management class could monitor the collection of these VOs, pass them around, perform the method calls, and the objects would hold the state in a bit more readable format.
Really, though, this is entering into a coding style discussion. Your method works and it's not particularly inefficient. Just make sure the code is readable, encapsulated, and extensible and you're good.
I have a class that requires some of its methods to be called in a specific order. If these methods are called out of order then the object will stop working correctly. There are a few asserts in the methods to ensure that the object is in a valid state. What naming conventions could I use to communicate to the next person to read the code that these methods need to be called in a specific order?
It would be possible to turn this into one huge method, but huge methods are a great way to create problems. (There are a 2 methods than can trigger this sequence so 1 huge method would also result in duplication.)
It would be possible to write comments that explain that the methods need to be called in order but comments are less useful then clearly named methods.
Any suggestions?
Is it possible to refactor so (at least some of) the state from the first function is passed as a paramter to the second function, then it's impossible to avoid?
Otherwise, if you have comments and asserts, you're doing quite well.
However, "It would be possible to turn this into one huge method" makes it sound like the outside code doesn't need to access the intermediate state in any way. If so, why not just make one public method, which calls several private methods successively? Something like:
FroblicateWeazel() {
// Need to be in this order:
FroblicateWeazel_Init();
FroblicateWeazel_PerformCals();
FroblicateWeazel_OutputCalcs();
FroblicateWeazel_Cleanup();
}
That's not perfect, but if the order is centralised to that one function, it's fairly easy to see what order they should come in.
Message digest and encryption/decryption routines often have an _init() method to set things up, an _update() to add new data, and a _final() to return final results and tear things back down again.
This has been a long-standing curiosity of mine, and I haven't gotten around to profiling to find out, and haven't seen it asked yet (for AS3):
Let's say that I have a class:
class MyClass {
public function myMethod():String {
return "some return value";
}
}
which will be instantiated a lot of times:
for (var i:Number = 0; i < 10000; i++) {
var myObject:MyClass = new MyClass();
trace(myObject.myMethod);
}
Will changing myMethod to static have any change on the memory footprint of my app?
Is mxmlc smart enough to make a single reference to the function?
Basically, if I keep my method non-static will there be:
No difference from a static version the method as far as memory is concerned
10,000 small instance references to a single function
10,000 function bytecode duplicates
in memory?
Yes, there'll be a difference in memory usage. Basically, because in one case you have one class and in the other one you have one class and 10,000 instances.
The code for the function itself will not be duplicated 10,000 times, though. There's just one function in memory in either case. Leaving semantics aside, an instance method is pretty much a static function that is passed a reference to the instance as its first parameter.
This parameter is hidden from you in Actionscript, as it in most languages (though others, like Python, I think, make you declare a self/this parameter in the function definition; you don't have to pass it explicitly at call time though).
Each object stores a reference to its methods (the methods declared in the actual runtime type and also inherited methods), usually in a structure called a vtable. The protocol for calling these methods usually involves finding the function in the table and calling it passing a reference to the this object on which the method is invoked, plus the rest of the arguments (if any).
At any rate, the static option could be a legitimate choice in some cases (the most obvious is when you have no state to keep, so you really don't need an object), but in general, an instance method is more flexible and less restrictive. Anyway, I'd say in almost every case it'd be rather unwise to choose one option or the other based on which one takes less memory.
I have question regarding the use of function parameters.
In the past I have always written my code such that all information needed by a function is passed in as a parameter. I.e. global parameters are not used.
However through looking over other peoples code, functions without parameters seem to be the norm. I should note that these are for private functions of a class and that the values that would have been passed in as paramaters are in fact private member variables for that class.
This leads to neater looking code and im starting to lean towards this for private functions but would like other peoples views.
E.g.
Start();
Process();
Stop();
is neater and more readable than:
ParamD = Start(paramA, ParamB, ParamC);
Process(ParamA, ParamD);
Stop(ParamC);
It does break encapsulation from a method point of view but not from a class point of view.
There's nothing wrong in principle with having functions access object fields, but the particular example you give scares me, because the price of simplifying your function calls is that you're obfuscating the life cycle of your data.
To translate your args example into fields, you'd have something like:
void Start() {
// read FieldA, FieldB, and FieldC
// set the value of FieldD
}
void Process() {
// read FieldA and do something
// read FieldD and do something
}
void Stop() {
// read the value of FieldC
}
Start() sets FieldD by side effect. This means that it's probably not valid to call Process() until after you've called Start(). But the code doesn't tell you that. You only find out by searching to see where FieldD is initialized. This is asking for bugs.
My rule of thumb is that functions should only access an object field if it's always safe to access that field. Best if it's a field that's initialized at construction time, but a field that stores a reference to a collaborator object or something, which could change over time, is okay too.
But if it's not valid to call one function except after another function has produced some output, that output should be passed in, not stored in the state. If you treat each function as independent, and avoid side effects, your code will be more maintainable and easier to understand.
As you mentioned, there's a trade-off between them. There's no hard rule for always preferring one to another. Minimizing the scope of variables will keep their side effect local, the code more modular and reusable and debugging easier. However, it can be an overkill in some cases. If you keep your classes small (which you should do) then the shared variable would generally make sense. However, there can be other issues such as thread safety that might affect your choice.
Not passing the object's own member attributes as parameters to its methods is the normal practice: effectively when you call myobject.someMethod() you are implicitly passing the whole object (with all its attributes) as a parameter to the method code.
I generally agree with both of Mehrdad and Mufasa's comments. There's no hard and fast rule for what is best. You should use the approach that suits the specific scenarios you work on bearing in mind:
readability of code
cleanliness of code (can get messy if you pass a million and one parameters into a method - especially if they are class level variables. Alternative is to encapsulate parameters into groups, and create e.g. a struct to whole multiple values, in one object)
testability of code. This is important in my opinion. I have occassionally refactored code to add parameters to a method purely for the purpose of improving testability as it can allow for better unit testing
This is something you need to measure on a case by case basis.
For example ask yourself if you were to use parameter in a private method is it ever going to be reasonable to pass a value that is anything other than that of a specific property in the object? If not then you may as well access the property/field directly in the method.
OTH you may ask yourself does this method mutate the state of the object? If not then perhaps it may be better as a Static and have all its required values passed as parameters.
There are all sorts of considerations, the upper most has to be "What is most understandable to other developers".
In an object-oriented language it is common to pass in dependencies (classes that this class will communicate with) and configuration values in the constructor and only the values to actually be operated on in the function call.
This can actually be more readable. Consider code where you have a service that generates and publishes an invoice. There can be a variety of ways to do the publication - via a web-service that sends it to some sort of centralized server, or via an email sent to someone in the warehouse, or maybe just by sending it to the default printer. However, it is usually simpler for the method calling Publish() to not know the specifics of how the publication is happening - it just needs to know that the publication went off without a hitch. This allows you to think of less things at a time and concentrate on the problem better. Then you are simply making use of an interface to a service (in C#):
// Notice the consuming class needs only know what it does, not how it does it
public interface IInvoicePublisher {
pubic void Publish(Invoice anInvoice);
}
This could be implemented in a variety of ways, for example:
public class DefaultPrinterInvoicePublisher
DefaultPrinterInvoicePublisher _printer;
public DefaultPrinterInvoicePublisher(DefaultPrinterFacade printer) {
_printer = printer
}
public void Publish(Invoice anInvoice) {
printableObject = //Generate crystal report, or something else that can be printed
_printer.Print(printableObject);
}
The code that uses it would then take an IInvoicePublisher as a constructor parameter too so that functionality is available to be used throughout.
Generally, it's better to use parameters. Greatly increases the ability to use patterns like dependency injection and test-driven design.
If it is an internal only method though, that's not as important.
I don't pass the object's state to the private methods because the method can access the state just like that.
I pass parameters to a private method when the private method is invoked from a public method and the public method gets a parameter which it then sends to the private method.
Public DoTask( string jobid, object T)
{
DoTask1(jobid, t);
DoTask2(jobid, t);
}
private DoTask1( string jobid, object T)
{
}
private DoTask2( string jobid, object T)
{
}
I'm currently working on a class that calculates the difference between two objects. I'm trying to decide what the best design for this class would be. I see two options:
1) Single-use class instance. Takes the objects to diff in the constructor and calculates the diff for that.
public class MyObjDiffer {
public MyObjDiffer(MyObj o1, MyObj o2) {
// Calculate diff here and store results in member variables
}
public boolean areObjectsDifferent() {
// ...
}
public Vector getOnlyInObj1() {
// ...
}
public Vector getOnlyInObj2() {
// ...
}
// ...
}
2) Re-usable class instance. Constructor takes no arguments. Has a "calculateDiff()" method that takes the objects to diff, and returns the results.
public class MyObjDiffer {
public MyObjDiffer() { }
public DiffResults getResults(MyObj o1, MyObj o2) {
// calculate and return the results. Nothing is stored in this class's members.
}
}
public class DiffResults {
public boolean areObjectsDifferent() {
// ...
}
public Vector getOnlyInObj1() {
// ...
}
public Vector getOnlyInObj2() {
// ...
}
}
The diffing will be fairly complex (details don't matter for the question), so there will need to be a number of helper functions. If I take solution 1 then I can store the data in member variables and don't have to pass everything around. It's slightly more compact, as everything is handled within a single class.
However, conceptually, it seems weird that a "Differ" would be specific to a certain set of results. Option 2 splits the results from the logic that actually calculates them.
EDIT: Option 2 also provides the ability to make the "MyObjDiffer" class static. Thanks kitsune, I forgot to mention that.
I'm having trouble seeing any significant pro or con to either option. I figure this kind of thing (a class that just handles some one-shot calculation) has to come up fairly often, and maybe I'm missing something. So, I figured I'd pose the question to the cloud. Are there significant pros or cons to one or the other option here? Is one inherently better? Does it matter?
I am doing this in Java, so there might be some restrictions on the possibilities, but the overall question of design is probably language-agnostic.
Use Object-Oriented Programming
Use option 2, but do not make it static.
The Strategy Pattern
This way, an instance MyObjDiffer can be passed to anyone that needs a Strategy for computing the difference between objects.
If, down the road, you find that different rules are used for computation in different contexts, you can create a new strategy to suit. With your code as it stands, you'd extend MyObjDiffer and override its methods, which is certainly workable. A better approach would be to define an interface, and have MyObjDiffer as one implementation.
Any decent refactoring tool will be able to "extract an interface" from MyObjDiffer and replace references to that type with the interface type at some later time if you want to delay the decision. Using "Option 2" with instance methods, rather than class procedures, gives you that flexibility.
Configure an Instance
Even if you never need to write a new comparison method, you might find that specifying options to tailor the behavior of your basic method is useful. If you think about using the "diff" command to compare text files, you'll remember how many different options there are: whitespace- and case-sensitivity, output options, etc. The best analog to this in OO programming is to consider each diff process as an object, with options set as properties on that object.
You want solution #2 for a number of reasons. And you don't want it to be static.
While static seems like fun, it's a maintenance nightmare when you come up with either (a) a new algorithm with the same requirements, or (b) new requirements.
A first-class object (without much internal state) allows you to evolve into a class hierarchy of different differs -- some slower, some faster, some with more memory, some with less memory, some for old requirements, some for new requirements.
Some of your differs may wind up with complicated internal state or memory, or incremental diffing or hash-code-based diffing. All kinds of possibilities might exist.
A reusable object allows you to pick your differ at application start-up time using a properties file.
In the long run, you want to minimize the number of new operations that are scattered throughout your application. You'd like to have your new operations focused in places where you can find and control them. To change from old differ algorithm to new differ algorithm, you'd like to do the following.
Write the new subclass.
Update a properties file to start using the new subclass.
And be completely confident that there wasn't some hidden d= new MyObjDiffer( x, y ) tucked away that you didn't know about.
You want to use d= theDiffer.getResults( x, y ) everywhere.
What the Java libraries do is they have a DifferFactory that's static. The factor checks the properties and emits the correct Differ.
DifferFactory df= new DifferFactory();
MyObjDiffer mod= df.getDiffer();
mod.getResults( x, y );
The Factory typically caches the single copy -- it doesn't have to physically read the properties every time getDiffer is called.
This design gives you ultimate flexibility in the future. At it looks like other parts of the Java libraries.
I can't really say I have firm reasons why it's the 'best' approach, but I usually write classes for objects that you can have a 'conversation' with. So it would be like your 'single use' option 1, except that by calling a setter, you would 'reset' it for another use.
Rather than supplying the implementation (which is pretty obvious), here's a sample invocation:
MyComparer cmp = new MyComparer(obj1, obj2);
boolean match = cmp.isMatch();
cmp.setSubjects(obj3,obj4);
List uniques1 = cmp.getOnlyIn(MyComparer.FIRST);
cmd.setSubject(MyComparer.SECOND,obj5);
List uniques = cmp.getOnlyIn(MyComparer.SECOND);
... and so on.
This way, the caller gets to decide whether they want to instantiate lots of objects, or keep reusing the one.
It's particularly useful if the object needs a lot of setup. Lets say your comparer takes options. There could be many. Set it up once, then use it many times.
// set up cmp with options and the master object
MyComparer cmp = new MyComparer();
cmp.setIgnoreCase(true);
cmp.setIgnoreTrailingWhitespace(false);
cmp.setSubject(MyComparer.FIRST,canonicalSubject);
// find items that are in the testSubjects objects,
// but not in the master.
List extraItems = new ArrayList();
for (Iterator it=testSubjects.iterator(); it.hasNext(); ) {
cmp.setSubject(MyComparer.SECOND,it.next());
extraItems.append(cmp.getOnlyIn(MyComparer.SECOND);
}
Edit: BTW I called it MyComparer rather than MyDiffer because it seemed more natural to have an isMatch() method than an isDifferent() method.
I'd take numero 2 and reflect on whether I should make this static.
Why are you writing a class whose only purpose is to calculate the difference between two objects? That sounds like a task either for a static function or a member function of the class.
I would go for a static constructor method, something like.
Diffs diffs = Diffs.calculateDifferences(foo, bar);
In this way, it's clear when you're calculating the differences, and there is no way to misuse the object's interface.
I like the idea of explicitly starting the work rather than having it occur on instantiation. Also, I think the results are substantial enough to warrant their own class. Your first design isn't as clean to me. Someone using this class would have to understand that after performing the calculation some other class members are now holding the results. Option 2 is more clear about what is happening.
It depends on how you're going to use diffs. In my mind, it makes sense to treat diffs as a logical entity because it needs to support some operations like 'getDiffString()', or 'numHunks()', or 'apply()'. I might take your first one and do it more like this:
public class Diff
{
public Diff(String path1, String path2)
{
// get diff
if (same)
throw new EmptyDiffException();
}
public String getDiffString()
{
}
public int numHunks()
{
}
public bool apply(String path1)
{
// try to apply diff as patch to file at path1. Return
// whether the patch applied successfully or not.
}
public bool merge(Diff diff)
{
// similar to apply(), but do merge yourself with another diff
}
}
Using a diff object like this also might lend itself to things like keeping a stack of patches, or serializing to a compressed archive, maybe an "undo" queue, and so on.