Comments on: Add flair to your code: Code Squiggles

By: Serhiy Yevtushenko

Serhiy Yevtushenko — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:42:21 +0000

For me, the most justified type of code squigless was using them for wrapping ugly array construction by using static methods with varagrs (and improve readability).
i.e.
static T[] strings(T … in){
return in;
}

and using strings(“a”, “b”, “c”) instead of new String[]{“a”, “b”, “c”}

Test code could became much more expressive this way.
However, if used too much, the code would start to remind prolog fact declaration.

By: An experiment about communication through tests « Schneide Blog

An experiment about communication through tests « Schneide Blog — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:34:39 +0000

[...] with named parameter support would alleviate this problem. In Java, you might consider to use Code Squiggles if you want to prepare for this [...]

By: How I met my coding style « Schneide Blog

How I met my coding style « Schneide Blog — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:05:26 +0000

[...] Code squiggles were a crazy idea that really provided readability value even after the initial excitement was [...]

By: daniel.lindner

daniel.lindner — Fri, 06 May 2011 08:21:26 +0000

Hi Peter,
thank you for the link and your question.
We are still using code squiggles (or “active code comments”, as some might call them). They are valueable tools to increase the fluency of code readability, but nothing more. We often show this technique to other programmers and the usual first reaction is “uhh! What’s that for? This is distracting!”. If you have seen two or three code squiggles without being distracted or hurt by them, this usually settles.
The value of code squiggles seem to diminish a bit in production code (as opposed to test code), because readability seems to be more of a concern with test code.

To sum it up: I still think code squiggles are useful (once you get used to them) and we still use them. Their domain seems to be more in the test code, though.

By: Peter Shirley

Peter Shirley — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:54:23 +0000

Synchronicity: I found this article at more-or-less the same time that I found another article by Jeff Langr on the same thing (although he doesn’t call them code squiggles):

http://langrsoft.com/jeff/2010/03/goofy-tdd-construct/

I’ll ask the same question here that I asked at the linked article: How do you feel about code squiggles a year after having started to use them?

By: Rajiv Bhagwat

Rajiv Bhagwat — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:12:20 +0000

You are approaching “data attribute notation” from another angle!

By: daniel.lindner

daniel.lindner — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:34:40 +0000

Hi None,

I appreciate your comment and your proposal. Having comments in the code might be the passive alternative to squiggles.

If you have to debug other people’s code, the last thing you should have to do is to look up all the squiggles and check if they are free of side-effects. That wouldn’t hamper readability (you can still read the code very fluently), but it would really degrade the accessibility (I hope it’s the right word, I’m not first-tongue with english). It’s not a big concern in our day-to-day work, but that’s just us.

Thanks for sharing your opinion.

By: None

None — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:07:26 +0000

Bizarre idea. I appreciate it improves readability somewhat, but when it comes to debugging other peoples code, how do you know that a squiggle is a squiggle without checking the contents of the method ? Repeatedly having to do that would hamper readability.

Why not just replace your squiggles with /* whatever */ – it can’t have any side effect and barely adds any additional blocks to reading the intention of the code.

By: Fluent code – challenge your compiler « Schneide Blog

Fluent code – challenge your compiler « Schneide Blog — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:27:29 +0000

[...] that drive the code, method names are just as important. And you can see the fitting usage of a code squiggle in the last line, a technique I often use to squeeze in the last missing pieces of [...]

By: Arun

Arun — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:00:29 +0000

Thanks for this perspective. Definitely adds to readability, especially when I get back to my code after 6 months.