Code style discussion about protoactor-dotnet HOT 7 CLOSED

I always say conditionals should be forced. Code merge situations can easily change if statements without braces. The braces usually make code not compile on mismerges.

C# 7 features are too good not to use.

from protoactor-dotnet.

I mean "force braces on any nested structure" including loops, etc.

from protoactor-dotnet.

What about API surface.

Return arrays or IReadonlyList<T> ?

e.g.

public string[] GetNodes()
//vs..
public IReadonlyList<string> GetNodes()

And how far should we push it on in params?
Allow IEnumerable<T> on args of more than one elements rather than arrays?

Internally, we could know that we only use arrays and avoid allocations in favor for a more restricted API.
On the other hand, having a generalized codebase could be nice in the long run.

Thoughts?

from protoactor-dotnet.

To be really "correct" I guess readonly lists but i hate coding with them. If people modify the array then they're really killing themselves. How much rope do we give people to hang themselves?

I prefer enumerables as parameters. Let the receiver rebuffer the data if they have to. The receiver should be doing that anyway to guarantee their own copy.

Of course that is subject to perf.

It almost feels like there is a low level and high level set of APIs. Like what is there is low level with arrays. What I'm attempting with DI and a MediatR approach is high level. Maybe think of the API and guidance in that way?

from protoactor-dotnet.

I agree about the style preferences above :)

Regarding collection types, we should actually avoid arrays because creating them is more expensive than lists. Internally I don't see any problem with having Lists as return types, although for public members we should probably strive for IReadOnlyCollection.

from protoactor-dotnet.

Arrays are more expensive than lists? Lists use arrays. I must be missing something in your point.

I'm thinking more of the "danger" of giving the user a mutable collection.

from protoactor-dotnet.

A correction: populating arrays is more expensive than lists (because of bounds-checking). OTOH, a List will have a few more allocations. So I guess we'd need to profile it to see which is more important.

Yes the user shouldn't be given mutable collections, but that can be solved by only having the readonly interfaces on public signatures.

from protoactor-dotnet.