Do not perform more than requested.

TL;DR: Unless you need atomicity, do not perform more than one task.

Problems

• Coupling
• Single Responsibility Principle violation
• Readability
• Low Cohesion
• Testability

Solutions

1. Break the function

Sample Code

Wrong

def fetch_and_display_personnel():
  data = # ...

  for person in data:
    print(person)

Right

def fetch_personnel():
  return # ...

def display_personnel(data):
  for person in data:
    print(person)

Detection

Functions including "and" are candidates. However, we need to check them carefully since there might be false positives.

Tags

• Readability
• Naming

Conclusion

We should avoid doing more than needed, and our functions should be both minimal and atomic.

More Info

• https://maximilianocontieri.com/what-exactly-is-a-name-part-ii-rehab

Credits

Photo by Paul on Unsplash

This smell was inspired by

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If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you are doing, it’s almost always a sign that what you are doing is too complicated.

Sam Altman

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This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.