@vaporeon_ I've seen multiple times where some YouTuber in their first year of their undergraduate CS program is doing some code review and their primary concern is using if else when you could have used switch statements

Like, I like switch statements but who cares

@wallhackio @vaporeon_

​ if else

​ switch

​ map whose values are the corresponding handler to run

@vaporeon_ I'll never forget the video when an infamous kickstarter game's source code released and some guy made a 20 minute video critiquing the 4000-line file that managed the entire game state

The YouTubers main criticism was that the file didn't use switch statements

Talk about missing the forest for the trees

@sidd_harth0_5h4h can't find her

@wallhackio there no baby

@aescling but switch statements add a bunch of indentation so for me it's picking your poison

@wallhackio @aescling Do they?

switch (some_enum) {
case VALUE1:
  do_something();
  break;
case VALUE2:
  do_something_else();
  break;
}

vs.

if (some-enum == VALUE1) {
  do_something();
} else if (some_enum == VALUE2) {
  do_something_else();
}

That's the same amount of indentation...

@vaporeon_ @aescling oh I have a skill issue it seems

@wallhackio @aescling To be fair, Vim's autoindentation keeps trying to do this:

switch (some_enum) {
  case VALUE1:
    do_something();
    break;
  /* and so on */
}

But that's worse IMO, since logically there should be only one indentation and not two

@vaporeon_ @aescling I would always do it like

switch(gorp) {
  case 'norp':
    console.log('norp');
    break;
  case 'sorp':
    console.log('sorp');
    break;
  default:
    console.log(' what the gorp???');
    break;
}

@wallhackio @aescling Cursed
Will not work in C

@vaporeon_ @aescling this is JavaScript

@wallhackio @aescling You can switch statement on a string in JavaScripts? Even though gorp and 'norp' don't point to the same address?

@wallhackio @aescling In other words, JavaScript switch statements do strcmp(gorp, "norp") == 0 for you???

@vaporeon_ @aescling strings are primitives in JS 🔍 ​

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ the equality check on strings in most languages with a string type is an implicit strcmp, yeah. python does this

@vaporeon_ @wallhackio you wanna see some real fucked up shit? switch (true):

  // the navbar links to every chunk of the gallery.
  // the current page does not get a link.
  // index 0 links to `/`.
  /** @type {Node[]} */
  const linksByIndex = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < chunkedImages.length; i++) {
    switch (true) {
      case i === chunkIndex:
        linksByIndex.push(li({ class: "active" }, `${i + 1}`));
        break;
      case i === 0:
        linksByIndex.push(li({}, a({ href: "/" }, `${i + 1}`)));
        break;
      default:
        linksByIndex.push(li({}, a({ href: `/${i + 1}.html` }, `${i + 1}`)));
    }
  }

@aescling @wallhackio Nooooooooooooooooooooooo

Just use an if statement at that point...

@aescling @wallhackio Seriously, why would you write this? I'd just write if (i === chunkIndex), else if (!i), and else...

@vaporeon_ @wallhackio i just irrationally hate if /else if /... that much

@aescling @wallhackio Reported

@vaporeon_ @aescling I with vaporeon on this, I'm going to ask our admin to ban you

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ banning the syscatmin… sure that would go down well :P

@aescling @vaporeon_ I'm sure our elastic search can't break any more often than it already does

@wallhackio @vaporeon_

@aescling @vaporeon_ clearly propaganda

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ when was the last time you actually had to complain to me that it was broken

@aescling @vaporeon_ I guess I understand the undergrads now because the i++ just made my eye twitch even though it literally doesn't matter

@wallhackio @aescling ??? What's wrong with i++?

@vaporeon_ @aescling
It's "more performant" to use ++i*

^{*It really doesn't matter and even if this does give a teeny, marginal performance boost it's the kind of thing a modern compiler will catch for you anyway}

@wallhackio @aescling If I remember correctly, in one of our courses we were told that this is something that a compiler can easily optimise

@vaporeon_ @aescling yea i agree

@wallhackio @aescling I was agreeing with you, I was saying "we were taught the same thing"

@vaporeon_ @aescling ah I see

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ @aescling you should instead do

switch (gorp) {
case 'norp': {
console.log('norp')
break
}
// etc
}

@Lady @wallhackio @aescling Why are you removing the semicolons?

@vaporeon_ @Lady @wallhackio they’re optional in javascript :3

@vaporeon_ @Lady @aescling JavaScript will auto insert semicolons if you don't add them

There are camps on whether or not you should manually add them

I think ignoring them makes more sense but it was a style convention at my old job to use them and the Deno autoformatter inserts semicolons so I just write them now out of habit

@wallhackio @Lady @aescling Just when I thought you couldn't make me hate JavaScripts even more
Cursed language

@vaporeon_ @wallhackio @aescling wait until you learn about Python

@Lady @vaporeon_ @aescling I only do that if I start declaring variables in the switchies

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ @aescling reasonable but then if you add a variable declaration you have to reindent the whole block so

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ @aescling really one should just not use switch statements unless you are writing Swift which actually does them well

@wallhackio @vaporeon_ hey @aescling how do you feel about

switch (false) {
case !cond1:
// …
case !cond2:
// …
}

you hater of elif

@Lady @wallhackio @vaporeon_ ftr i didn't actually end up thinking switch (true) was better and wouldn’t do it again because it’s just about equally as terrible as that

@aescling @wallhackio @vaporeon_ coffeescript allows a bare switch without a condition statement which effectively compiles to switch (true)

@Lady @wallhackio @vaporeon_ …interesting

@aescling @wallhackio @vaporeon_ coffeescript is good and fun but you have to install node to use it so it’s impossible to say whether it is worthwhile or not

@wallhackio @aescling In some languages (i.e. Ruby), cases are basically syntactic sugar for if/elses anyway. I do appreciate it generally making it easier to see "we're going to do a bunch of comparisons against one thing" though rather than needing to reverify predicates each time.

@aschmitz @aescling I like switch statements I just don't understand why undergrad cs students seem to think they're the pinnacle of software design

Everyone used else if at my old job and it was fine.