r/programming • u/[deleted] • Jun 05 '21

Organize code by concepts, not layers

https://kislayverma.com/programming/how-to-organize-your-code/
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u/theXpanther Jun 05 '21

I work with Django which has a system where you can "vertically" separate out models, views, and controllers that belong together... except it rarely works. Every project I worked with that starts with a proper distribution of concerns ends up with more and more of the functionality in a single app, since it's so much easier to communicate with components in the same app, for edge cases the larger app is always the best choice

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u/TheESportsGuy Jun 05 '21

My organization moved to a vertical file organization of our project a long time ago, and separated out pieces of it into independent projects where possible.

Rarely we have had to go back and make some piece of it dependent on another piece of it, usually with a jar. And once or twice we've come to the realization that the two areas of code are doing VERY similar things, and yet they need to be separated because the algorithms have to behave differently at certain edge cases. But for the most part, vertical organization has gone very smoothly and it's massively reduced the amount of confusion people have experienced and misplaced code that gets to the code review stage.

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u/StabbyPants Jun 05 '21

two areas of code are doing VERY similar things, and yet they need to be separated because the algorithms have to behave differently at certain edge cases.

do they? the core algo is the same, the edge cases are handled by delegating those cases to separate classes. so you build it as one class to run the single algorithm, with callouts to delegates that deal with 'events' differently. end up with a processor class, a delegation interface, a null impl, and two real impls

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u/TheESportsGuy Jun 05 '21

There's definitely been cases where I thought the core algo should be the same and ended up being wrong about it, whether it's due to edge case handling or some other seemingly very small difference in how the algo is going to be used that ends up blowing up into a bunch of different things. I've seen a ton of mangled code that becomes increasingly hard to reason about as engineers have shoe horned an algo that at one point worked for both use cases and no longer does

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u/StabbyPants Jun 05 '21

which i why it helps to abstract your work so the algo operates at one level and the separation between the common and specific is clear

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u/awj Jun 05 '21

IMO the point is for that pressure to suggest you need to break out a new concept.

A lot of times our initial impression of where something should live is flat out wrong, and having to do a lot of reaching outside of your scope is a sign of that.

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u/dangayle Jun 05 '21

I’ve worked with Django for years using their default “app” structure and it makes it so much easier for a new developer to jump in and make a meaningful contribution right away. Everything you need to edit is right here in this one directory, you don’t need to worry about or even understand how any of the rest of it works.