Remove non-idiomatic exclamation (!) suffix from method names
#1801
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This PR touches files which potentially affect the outcome of the tests of an exercise. This will cause all students' solutions to affected exercises to be re-tested. If this PR does not affect the result of the test (or, for example, adds an edge case that is not worth rerunning all tests for), please add the following to the merge-commit message which will stops student's tests from re-running. Please copy-paste to avoid typos. For more information, refer to the documentation. If you are unsure whether to add the message or not, please ping |
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| # Popcorn is 🍿 | ||
| def claim_free_popcorn! |
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The bang indicates dangerous, as in may raise an exception.
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All methods may raise an exception. I don't believe the bang has a definitive connection with raising errors.
Many Rails methods take this differentiation in behaviour when compared to their non-bang counterpart. But even the non-bang methods raise errors under the right circumstances. E.g. ActiveRecord's save vs save! can both raise an exception if the Database goes down or the Ruby process runs out of memory.
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Yes, those are both exceptional behaviors, though. And exceptions are for exceptional behavior.
Contrary to some of our exercises, even. This exercise, even, as it is arguably using the exception as flow control. I am aware of this, yet the discussions happen in mentoring (at least I discuss this during mentoring).
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| # Popcorn is 🍿 | ||
| def claim_free_popcorn! | ||
| def claim_free_popcorn |
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This would be very surprising to have an assertion come up, but the tests require that an exception is raised, so the bang is appropriate.
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Again, all Ruby methods can raise errors. It is not surprising, but it is exceptional!
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| def reverse! |
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Because there is no reverse without, this does mean "change in place". If the tests verify that it is a mutation, then the bang should stand.
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The bang (!) does not mean “destructive” nor lack of it mean non destructive either.
There are many methods in the Ruby standard library that mutate the receiver and do not include an exclamation mark in the name. For example, String#concat, Array#pop, Hash#clear.
These are idiomatic because they have no counterpart method.
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| def test_list_in_place_reverse! | ||
| def test_list_in_place_reverse |
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Yes, the test name does not necessarily need the exclamation point. A not in place reverse method could also be tested. The bang here was only a literal reflection of the method name, without a way to fully indicate that.
This could be removed. The method itself will be indicated in the actual method use in the test.
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Context
Several learner-facing exercises require exclamaition-suffixed methods:
issue_pass!,revoke_pass!,claim_free_popcorn!,update!,reverse!These are non-idiomatic uses of such names in the Ruby language, according to Matz, the creator of Ruby:Thus, in idiomatic Ruby, to suffix a method name with an exclamation (bang), there needs to be a corresponding method similarly named without an exclamation. However, no such corresponding method exists in these examples.
Change
Rename those APIs to their non-bang forms across stubs, unit tests, and exemplar implementations (
issue_pass,revoke_pass,claim_free_popcorn,update, reverse). The implementations themselves remain behaviourally identical; only their public signatures and matching expectations were adjusted to drop the non-idiomatic suffix.Consequences
Learners can now work with idiomatic Ruby naming. Clarity is improved without altering the core exercises.