Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [patterns-and-practices]

Design patterns (repeatable solutions to commonly occurring problems) and best practices in software engineering

365 questions
171
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11 answers

What happened to the "Surgical Team" pattern from "The Mythical Man-Month"?

Years ago, when I read The Mythical Man-Month, I found lots of stuff which I already knew from other sources. However, there were also new things in there, despite the book being from 1975. One of them was: The Surgical Team Mills proposes that…
vog
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111
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13 answers

Exception vs empty result set when the inputs are technically valid, but unsatisfiable

I'm developing a library intended for public release. It contains various methods for operating on sets of objects - generating, inspecting, partitioning and projecting the sets into new forms. In case it's relevant, it's a C# class library…
anaximander
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104
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3 answers

When and for what purposes should the const keyword be used in C for variables?

While getting my code reviewed here the issue of using the const keyword came up. I understand that it is used for implementing read-only behaviour on variables. I am confused about what are the various situations when it can be useful. Should it…
Aseem Bansal
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92
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5 answers

Best practices for making header file?

What things should absolutely always/never be included in a header file? Functions: what must go in the header file and what mustn't Constants: Is it good practice to define lot of constants in a header file? Any other good practices for C header…
Moshe Magnes
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90
votes
6 answers

Is it bad practice to enforce an execution order for unit tests?

I am writing tests for a project that consists of multiple submodules. Each test case that I have written runs independent of each other and I clear all data between tests. Even though the tests run independently, I am considering enforcing an…
Ali Rasim Kocal
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80
votes
8 answers

Is modifying an incoming parameter an antipattern?

I am programming in Java, and I always make converters sort of like this: public OtherObject MyObject2OtherObject(MyObject mo){ ... Do the conversion return otherObject; } At the new workplace the pattern is: public void…
CsBalazsHungary
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80
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2 answers

Are there any OO-principles that are practically applicable for Javascript?

Javascript is a prototype-based object oriented language but can become class-based in a variety of ways, either by: Writing the functions to be used as classes by yourself Use a nifty class system in a framework (such as mootools…
Spoike
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75
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4 answers

Developing a feature which sole purpose to be taken out?

What is the name of the pattern in which individual contributors (programmers/designers) developed an artifact for the sole purpose is to serve as a diversion so that management can remove that feature in the final product? This is a folklore I…
adib
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54
votes
8 answers

Term (or "pattern"?) for "Do something if it's not already done"

Sounds pretty basic, I know, but I recently had a colleague tell me that a method called startHttpServer is too complicated to understand because it only starts the server if it's not already running. I find I get into trouble when I respond with,…
John Calcote
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54
votes
5 answers

Is "convention over configuration" not violating basic programming principles?

I was looking at the WPF MVVM framework Caliburn.Micro and read that a lot of standard things are based on naming conventions. For example, automatic binding of properties in the View to properties in the ViewModel. Although this seems to be…
Geerten
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48
votes
11 answers

Are error variables an anti-pattern or good design?

In order to handle several possible errors that shouldn't halt execution, I have an error variable that clients can check and use to throw exceptions. Is this an Anti-Pattern? Is there a better way to handle this? For an example of this in action…
Mikayla Maki
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45
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6 answers

What is the best way to initialize a child's reference to its parent?

I'm developing an object model that has lots of different parent/child classes. Each child object has a reference to its parent object. I can think of (and have tried) several ways to initialize the parent reference, but I find significant…
Steven Broshar
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40
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6 answers

Should I place functions that are only used in one other function, within that function?

Specifically, I'm writing in JavaScript. Let's say my primary function is Function A. If Function A makes several calls to Function B, but Function B is not used anywhere else, then should I just place Function B within Function A? Is that good…
Gary
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39
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8 answers

Is it ok copying code from one application to another, both belonging to the same repository, to keep them independent?

Given a repository which contains two different applications A and B (e.g. bootloader and RTOS), is it ok to copy source code from A to B in order to avoid dependencies (include's, adding A source files to the B compilation) between them, so they…
Dan
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38
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6 answers

Try/Catch/Log/Rethrow - Is Anti Pattern?

I can see several post where importance of handling exception at central location or at process boundary been emphasized as a good practice rather than littering every code block around try/catch. I strongly believe that most of us understand the…
rahulaga-msft
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