How far is too far with fluent C#?

Question

public static class Th
{
    public static T e<T>(T theObject) where T : class
    {
        return theObject;
    }        
}

public static class ObjectExtensions
{
    public static bool Is<T>(this T o, Func<T, bool> a) where T : class
    {
        return a(o);
    }
}

//...

//logic in a method somewhere
Func<string, bool> valid = property => _myService.SomeValidationMethod(property);

if (Th.e(_request.Property).Is(valid))
{
   //do something
}

Is this code suitable for production and why?

Edit: Thank you for all your comments. I hope you had as much fun reading my stretching of the C# syntax to breaking point as I did reading your responses.

It's unreadable... A bunch of comments needed to understand... It hurts my eyes and mind. :) — Sasha Reminnyi, Jan 31 '11 at 21:40
You create a hypothesis and then ask us to prove it? Why don't you say why it is suitable for production? — Gabriel Magana, Jan 31 '11 at 21:40
You sacrificed readability in most of your code in order to get a semi-fluent one-liner. Unmaintainable, and not worth the trouble IMHO. — Frédéric Hamidi, Jan 31 '11 at 21:41
@gmagana To be clear, I am not making any hypothesis. I am merely looking for a consensus on the validity of the code. Which I duly received! — Ben Aston, Jan 31 '11 at 21:52
@Ben Aston I believe that there is a reason some of the more "English" languages have disappeared into obscurity ;-) I don't think "fluent" and "English" should be confused. — , Jan 31 '11 at 22:00

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 31 '11 at 21:41

5

I have no problem with fluent APIs, but this seems to violate the principle of least surprise. I would not understand the purpose of a class named Th nor of a method named e.

answered Jan 31 '11 at 21:41

Jacob

77,566
24
149
228

... that only returns its argument. – Frédéric Hamidi Jan 31 '11 at 21:42
I was wondering what purpose that served. – Marlon Jan 31 '11 at 21:43
@Marlon to make it more "fluent" of course. dooh! – Arnis Lapsa Jan 31 '11 at 21:45

Frederik Gheysels · Answer 2 · 2011-02-01T08:11:38.590

2

What makes you think that this code is 'fluent' ?

this is absolutely not fluent, nor self documenting.

edited Feb 01 '11 at 08:11

answered Jan 31 '11 at 21:41

Frederik Gheysels

56,135
11
101
154

5

Likely because one can read `if (Th.e(_request.Property).Is(valid))` as a sentence if he manages to stay alive while ignoring all braces, underscores and dots. – Arnis Lapsa Jan 31 '11 at 21:48
@Amis, nice, I stopped reading the first time long before that line. – gjvdkamp Jan 31 '11 at 22:21

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 31 '11 at 21:42

2

That is too far. No, the code is not suitable for production. Th.e is neither correctly phrased prose nor appropriately-named code - it's meaningless in both contexts.

answered Jan 31 '11 at 21:42

Dylan Beattie

53,688
35
128
197

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 31 '11 at 22:35

While what you call "fluency" is extremely important, and most developers are missing that (even who should really care about this, like CS algorithm writers), the code style you showed us is abusing expressibility of the language and not very useful, IMO, for 2 reasons:

if (_request.Property.Is(valid)) would be "fluent" enough even without those Th class and Th.e method;
Because of this "fluency" your are loosing precious identifiers. What if you need to verify another object? You do if (Th.e(_request.Property2).Is(valid)) or if (Th.e(_request2.Property).Is(valid))? What if you need to perform another test? You do if (Th.e(_request.Property).Is(valid2))?

How far is too far with fluent C#?

4 Answers4