Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Gene Wirchenko Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Never using booleans as parameters Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 10:56:52 -0800 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: <87lh9tysy8.fsf@Equus.decebal.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="4cb728ed4564eaff5f6e6a95cb8d61a0"; logging-data="7880"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18kX6a7sEnBF0rBW0xBcmWXwiCDOxDTvhs=" X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 4.2/32.1118 Cancel-Lock: sha1:AS7aY+J7pYBFPlS7G3X91RSurWw= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:33381 On Sun, 20 Dec 2015 15:44:32 +0100, Brixomatic wrote: >In article , Gene Wirchenko >(genew@telus.net) says... [snip] >> What I dislike about Log.Nothing, Log.Differences, and similar is >> that so many people confuse them for documentation. Without anything >> else, I still have to guess what parameter values mean. > >Code IS documentation, if properly written. No, it is not. Code states how something is done. It does not state what is done or why it is done. Code also gets into all sorts of complications that can be quite irrelevant to the user. When I want to use something, I am usually concerned with what is being done or why. I am far less concerned with exactly how it is implemented, and if I have to dig into the code to figure out stuff, it is usually a waste of time. I want good documentation for programs. I do not want to have to take the program apart. For example, to figure out how to use a compiler, I would rather read the documentation than read the code. >> Log.Nothing probably means to not log anything at all, but >> Log.Differences states nothing about how those differences are logged >> and if I need to know that, I am out of luck. > >You might add a javadoc, if you need closer information. You might also In which case, the code is not sufficient. [snip] Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko