I am currently a junior engineer and keen on learning best practices and expanding my experience. My question concerns any static programming language such as Java, C#, C++ etc.
When I am writing code, I like making it easy to read. In my opinion, reading code should be like reading a book. It should be fluent and elegant. Then, even if I do not need to use them, I like prepending this, super–base keywords whenever I can. Ditto for current class name when I want to use constants or static variables/methods.
Consequently, another developer can quickly have a long shot. He knows this method or var is in the current class or in mother class without needed to move to declaration. You may say to me it is really easy to do that with recent IDE. However, I know a bunch of guys who are still working with Vim, Emacs or other editors without these fancy features.
When explaining it, I like comparing my practices to a drama book. We have all read at least one of them, such as Macbeth from Shakespeare. Who has never felt frustrated to go back at the beginning of the book to know who is that character and what part he has in the plot? You did that so many times, right?
My question can be associated to literate programming practices. However, I assumed Donald Knuth's recommandations are more about commenting and adding macros to your code.
So I would like to know your opinions and feedbacks about these practices. Am I doing too much? Should I keep it simpler? Am I breaking OOP rules?
Here is a code sample:
class Bar {
protected int _motherVar;
public aBarMethod() { }
}
class Foo extends Bar {
private static List<String> _strings;
private int _myPrivateVar;
public void aMethod() {
super.aBarMethod();
this._myPrivateVar++;
super._motherVar -= 2;
}
public static String anotherMethod() {
String outcome = "";
for (String s : Foo._strings) {
outcome += s;
}
return outcome;
}
}
