Stop Writing Classes

Jack Diederich
Classes are great but they are also overused. This talk will describe examples of class overuse taken from real world code and refactor the unnecessary classes, exceptions, and modules out of them.

• Category

  Education

[Soshize]

WTF?!: "Seperation of Concerns, Decoupling, Encapsulation, Implementation Hiding - I haven't used these words in 15 years, anyone who uses these words is trying to pull a fast one on you, it just doesn't come up"

[James Schneider]

Just because abstract classes and formal interfaces aren't native to Python doesn't mean Python programers can't implement the good design principles they help enforce. We're talking about good design here. Replacing crappy classes with crappy functions doesn't really improve the design/code at all.

[John Doe]

He's giving a talk as if he was a real programmer.

[gueneykerim]

I don't really get the Muffin API. If he could do it so easily, why get a third-party API in the first place?

[ulogacms]

LOL!

[Talaxy]

Interesting but a little subjective.

[cranespud]

I advocate for good design and structure, but also I strongly agree with not over design, one should plan for the future but not invest too much effort on it. for example I'll model this as a class because it has a good chance to be overload or subclassed, but I'm not creating the whole inheritance structure.

[zendakk]

Go troll elsewhere.

[ChesterDoraemon]

python is a piece of shit language. only our support guys use python. they wish they had the skills to be on the developer team that writes the C++ code.

[GathGealaich]

"1: Mostly no point in abstract base classes in duck-typed languages."

Especially in those in which can have mixable traits. (Well, perhaps they could be used for documentation purposes, I don't know.)

[advance512]

But, this guy also has some silly points:

1: His Web API is simple, but it doesn't tell the coder what verbs/nouns exist. This requires looking a documentation instead of using auto-completion lists.

2. All of the "words he hasn't used in 15 years" allow for using 3rd party modules a lot simpler and quicker for most devs.

3. His implementation of the Game of Life is very clever, but it will be a maintainence nightmare as it just seems obfuscated, and changing certain parts of it will suck.

[advance512]

Hmm, this guy has some good points.

1: Mostly no point in abstract base classes in duck-typed languages.

2: No point in making function objects (functors) when there is no interface concept.

3: Less code is mostly better, but only if it is simpler.

4: Preparing the code for the future is ok, if it requires minimal effort. Otherwise it is pointless.

5: Namespaces should not be abused. But they are helpful sometimes, for organization purposes. In auto-completion lists they are crucial.