Code Smell 169 - Glued Methods

Don't make two or more things at once.

TL;DR: Try to be as atomic as possible in your methods

Problems

  • Coupled Code

  • Harder to test

  • Harder to read

Solutions

  1. Break the method

Refactorings

Context

If you name a method with 'And' you are probably missing an extract-and-break method opportunity.

Sample Code

Wrong

calculatePrimeFactorsRemoveDuplicatesAndPrintThem()

// Three responsibilities

Right

calculatePrimeFactors();

removeDuplicates();

printNumbers();

// Three diferent methods
// We can test them and reuse them

Detection

[X] Semi-Automatic

Some linters can warn us about methods including the term 'and'.

Tags

  • Coupling

Conclusion

When making methods, it is very important to play some rubber duck story and tell ourselves if we are making things right.

Relations

Disclaimer

Code Smells are just my opinion.

Credits

Photo by Scott Sanker on Unsplash


Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.

Joshua Bloch


This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.