On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 9:00 AM, John Brant <brant@refactoryworkers.com> wrote:

> On Dec 7, 2016, at 3:44 AM, Denis Kudriashov <dionisiydk@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 2016-12-06 19:29 GMT+01:00 John Brant <brant@refactoryworkers.com>:
> > We could make it configurable. "Manually" accessors will be generated in simplified mode and related refactorings will use intelligent mode
>
> My personal preference would be to ask the user what to do when performing the accessor refactoring. If the class hierarchy already has a method with the name of the variable, we can look at that method and determine what to do. In the case of #name, we could see that it is defined in a superclass and ask if it is ok to override the method (likely a good choice, but not always so it is good to confirm with the user). If the class directly defines the method, and that method has a return that returns the variable, then we can ask if they want to use that method as the ��accessor�� even though it does some other stuff (and potential returns a different value). Finally, if some subclass defines the method, then we can ask if they want to create that method even though some subclass is overriding it. Of course, we could have any combination of all three too. If they want a different method, then we should ask what to name the method instead of appending a number to the name.
>
> Ok. You prefer tons of questions to user just to perform stupid accessors generation. And, please, don't say that it is rare cases. It is quite common which nicely shown here 18880.
> I wonder do you have real experience when it protected you from destroying system? We only talk about simple accessors refactoring.

Yes, I would prefer a question to doing something wrong and breaking my code. Part of the problem appears to be what is defined as an "accessor��. Accessors as defined for refactoring are simple get/set accessors (the set version can return or not return the set value �� depending on usage). Using this definition of accessor we can prove things about the code. However, when you extend the ��accessor�� definition then it gets much tougher to prove anything.

Which of these would you consider valid setter methods for foo?

�� foo: anInteger
�� (anInteger between: 1 and: 100) ifTrue: [foo := anInteger]

�� foo: anInteger
�� (anInteger between: 1 and: 100)
�� ifTrue: [foo := anInteger]
�� ifFalse: [self error: ��Invalid value��]

�� foo: anInteger
�� (anInteger between: 1 and: 100)
�� ifTrue: [foo := anInteger]
�� ifFalse: [bar := anInteger]

�� foo: anInteger
�� foo := anInteger.
�� self changed

�� foo: anInteger
�� self aboutToChange: #foo.
�� foo := anInteger.
�� self changed: #foo

�� foo: anInteger
�� self change: #foo to: anInteger

�� foo: anInteger
�� do nothing��

�� foo: anInteger
�� bar := anInteger

�� bar: anInteger
�� foo := anInteger

As for whether things are ��rare�� or not, that would depend on the usage and the person performing the refactoring. If you are in the habit of creating some accessor like methods and then doing a create accessors refactoring, then you will get this behavior frequently. However, if you are defining the class and then immediately creating the accessors, then it will be much less frequent.

As for my ��real experience��, I wrote the accessor refactoring over 22 years ago. Since then, I��ve had several times that it has saved me from overriding a method that I didn��t want to be overridden. As for saving me from destroying the system, it most likely has, but not in the way you probably expect. When I would test the refactorings, I would purposely try to destroy the system by doing dangerous things. If the system crashed, I would fix the refactorings, or add an explanation that the refactoring didn��t/couldn��t check for that behavior. Testing in this way gave us confidence when giving demos. We could allow people to yell out refactorings that they wanted to see performed and we were fairly confident that everything would keep running. Over the years, we renamed Object to Thing, True/False to False/True, #+ to #p:, extracted/inlined bunches of code in String and OrderedCollection, etc. Only once in all of the demos did we destroy the system. We renamed a method that was being used by the process scheduler. We don��t try to fix running code with the new names so when the original method was removed, the process scheduler threw an error and crashed the image. We could have had the rename method refactoring handle this case also, but that would have required some non-portable code.

John Brant

Amen.�� If it ain't broke, don't fix it.�� It should go without saying that if it ain't broke, don't break it.�� Changing the accessor refactoring is breaking things.

_,,,^..^,,,_

best,��Eliot