What does everyone’s code uglier? Actually, the only thing is code itself. Unnecessary code. The code that would not be written if the author of library I use thought about me, but not about his awesomeness.

Checks before foreach

What do I mean? I used to spend lots of time for writing code like this:

<?php
if ($news->hasCategories()) {
    foreach ($news->getCategories() as $category) {
        // Do some stuff
    }
}

Okay, at least there is hasCategories function. But wait… Why do I need this if wrapper? Why library author does not just return empty array instead of null if there is no category? Do not be that guy :)

Default values

Another way to uglify your code is:

{% if project.logo %}
    <img src="{{ project.logo.path }}" />
{% else %}
    <img src="/path/to/default.png" />
{% endif %}

Looks pretty familiar, isn’t it? What’s wrong with this piece of code? How can I make it better?

First of all, define __toString() function for Logo to return path and shorten this piece: {{ project.logo }}.

The second thing will allow us to get rid of the whole construction. Martin Fowler calls this refactoring “Introduce null object”. Project::getLogo() should return an instance of tiny class that represents default value. And this object will return /path/to/default.png. This instance can be anonymous if it is possible in language you use (no way in PHP).

<?php // Project.php
class Project 
{
    /** @return LogoInterface */ 
    public function getLogo() {
        return $this->logo ?: new DefaultLogo();
    }
}

<?php // DefaultLogo.php
class DefaultLogo implements LogoInterface
{
    public function path() {
        return '/path/to/default.png';
    }
    
    public function __toString {
        return $this->path();
    }
}

And now our glue code is that simple:

<img src="{{ project.logo }}" />

Yes, this refactoring creates more complex library code, but significantly reduces amount of high-level glue code. That is awesome for me, I hate glue code :)

Conclusion

When you write some code, think of a guy who will use your code in his work. Probably, this guy is you.