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I keep tripping over
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I keep tripping over

allthingssmitty.com·https://allthingssmitty.com/about/·22 days ago
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Every so often I open a PR and see something like this: deployFeature(flag, true, false, true); I run into it more often than I’d like. Not because it’s complicated. Just because I have no idea what I’m looking at. So I click into the function definition, scroll a bit, lose my place, jump back, re-read the line…and only then does it click. Tiny interruption. Still annoying every time. I’m not reading code anymore, I’m decoding it Here’s a simpler one: createUser(user, true, false); What does that mean? Is the user an admin? Are we sending a welcome email, or skipping validation? I don’t know. And at that point I’m not really reading code anymore, I’m decoding it. There’s a name for this (“flag arguments,” sometimes “boolean blindness”), but honestly I don’t really need the term to feel the problem. I’ve definitely written this before: createUser(user, true, false); // isAdmin, sendWelcomeEmail Which kind of gives the whole thing away.…

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