Re: static hashtable with conent?
Mike Schilling wrote:
....
Or one could simply say
Map map = new HashMap();
map.put(a,b);
map.put(c,d);
f(map);
Or even introduce a private method to create and populate the map, if it's
considered important to distinguish that part of the code from the rest..
By the way, note that Patricia is (quite correctly here) using "clever"
disparagingly. That isn't done nearly often enough.
Maybe "disparagingly" is a bit stronger than I meant. I have really
mixed feelings about this type of thing.
On the one hand, I admire creativity, and enjoy solving puzzles. From
that point of view, the anonymous class version is just plain *fun*.
On the other hand, in real code I greatly prefer simplicity and
obviousness. Even if something clever looks shorter in a newsgroup
posting, it would often be longer in real code, because of the comment
explaining it.
Even for the call situation, I would go with the code Mike suggested or
its private method call equivalent.
This really comes down to a model of programming as writing that must
communicate its meaning to two very different audiences. One audience is
the compiler, and other programming tools. The other audience is all
programmers who will ever read the code, my future self included.
The two methods communicate equally well with the compiler. The method
Mike suggests perhaps communicates better with refactoring tools -
Eclipse could convert it between the in-line and method call versions.
But the really important issue is that many programmers will have to
stop and puzzle out the anonymous class version. I understood it once I
looked at it and thought about it, but I would not have read straight
through it, thinking only about whether the initial contents of the map
are appropriate, the way I would the simpler, more explicit versions.
Patricia