NYCPHP Meetup

[Chris Bielanski]

I agree with Dan, and I wanted to inject a little experience here. I
spent a few years doing Delphi programming and it got me into a habit of
declaring and using $result in most of my functions. Now, whereas I use
multiple-exit logic like most folks here, a $result variable does (IMHO)
lend itself to the SP method of single-exit. Perhaps this is a suitable
"hybrid" approach, if that's the correct term?

My example modified from Dan's: (I went with my habit for case syntax
 function make_beverage_cb($bev_type, &$bev) {
     $result = false;
     switch ($bev_type) {
         case ('coffee'): {
             if (add_cwater($bev) && brew_coffee($bev)) {
                 $result = true;
             } 
             break; 
         }        
         case ('tea'): {
             if (add_cwater($bev) && add_tea_bag($bev)) {
                 $result = true;
             }
             break;
         } 
         default: {
             $result = false;
             break;
         }
     }
    return $result;
 }

Thanks,
Chris Bielanski
Web Programmer, 
International Trademark Association,
655 Third Avenue, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10017-5617 USA
+1 (212) 642-1745, f: +1 (212) 768-7796
mailto:cbielanski at inta.org, www.inta.org  
INTA -- 125 Years of Excellence

Dan Said: 
> That aside, the notion of having one exit point per function 
> doesn't carry much weight in my mind.  If one reaches the end 
> of execution, it seems clearest to me to actually say you've 
> reached that point by leaving the function.  Otherwise, 
> you're left wondering what else happens down in the rest of 
> the function and have to go hunting, only to find out, oh, 
> it's done.  What a waste.
> 
> Something I noticed in your examples is you're not handling 
> the situation if $bev_type isn't coffee or tea.  I'd likely 
> use a switch with a default case here.
> 
> You're assigning the returns of add_twater() and 
> add_tea_bag() to variables, but the values are only used for 
> evaluation in an if statement.  
> It's more efficient to just do:
> 
>         if (!add_tea_bag($bev)) {
>             return false;
>         }
> 
> Now, as far as how to handle reporting of errors, that's 
> really situation specific.
> 
> Here's how I'd write your function:
> 
> function make_beverage_dan($bev_type, &$bev) {
>     switch ($bev_type) {
>         case 'coffee':
>             if (add_cwater($bev) && brew_coffee($bev)) {
>                 return true;
>             }
>             return false;
> 
>         case 'tea':
>             if (add_cwater($bev) && add_tea_bag($bev)) {
>                 return true;
>             }
>             return false;
> 
>         default:
>             return false;
>     }
> }
> 
> I notice you're passing in $bev by reference.  If that's 
> solely to get the value out of the method, I tend to prefer 
> returning the values.
> 
> --Dan
> 
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