How do you proactively guard against errors of omission?
- by Gabriel
I'll preface this with I don't know if anyone else who's been programming as long as I have actually has this problem, but at the very least, the answer might help someone with less xp.
I just stared at this code for 5 minutes, thinking I was losing my mind that it didn't work:
var usedNames = new HashSet<string>();
Func<string, string> l = (s) =>
{
for (int i = 0; ; i++)
{
var next = (s + i).TrimEnd('0');
if (!usedNames.Contains(next))
{
return next;
}
}
};
Finally I noticed I forgot to add the used name to the hash set.
Similarly, I've spent minutes upon minutes over omitting context.SaveChanges().
I think I get so distracted by the details that I'm thinking about that some really small details become invisible to me - it's almost at the level of mental block.
Are there tactics to prevent this?
update: a side effect of asking this was fixing the error it would have for i 9 (Thanks!)
var usedNames = new HashSet<string>();
Func<string, string> name = (s) =>
{
string result = s;
if(usedNames.Contains(s))
for (int i = 1; ; result = s + i++)
if (!usedNames.Contains(result))
break;
usedNames.Add(result);
return result;
};
