Help me pick an API design (OO vs functional)
Mitya Sirenef
msirenef at lightbird.net
Tue Mar 26 18:01:08 EDT 2013
On 03/26/2013 10:59 AM, Michael Herrmann wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 26, 2013 2:41:38 PM UTC+1, Mitya Sirenef wrote:
>> ...
>> At the __exit__, further commands are no longer routed to that window;
>> if it was a nested context, window is switched to the outer context,
>> WHEN there are commands in it (i.e. on the first command). This seems
>> pretty intuitive to me:
>>
>> with notepad1:
>> ^S
>> with notepad2:
>> ^S
>> write('something')
>>
>
>> ...
>> > What I am most afraid of: that the window that's currently the
>> > context "disappears":
>>
>> > notepad = start("Notepad")
>> > with notepad:
>> > press(ALT + TAB)
>> > write("Am I in Notepad now?")
>>
>>
>> Alt-tab needs to be handled by a wrapper function that gives you the
>> object of the window you've switched to:
>>
>> otherwin = alt_tab()
>> with otherwin:
>> ...
>>
>> If window is changed within 'with' block, the rest of block should be
>> ignored. Perhaps there could also be a way to switch this behaviour off,
>> for the entire script or for current block only.
>>
>>
>> > What do you think of designs #3 and #4?
>> > ...
>>
>> These are ok, too, but I feel it's much easier to send commands to a
>> wrong window vs. context managers. The same command in a different
>> window can have vastly different and dangerous effect. In other python
>> code that's generally not common at all, and would be bad style:
>>
>> lst = lst1
>> lst.append('x')
>> del lst[3]
>> lst.insert(0, 'a')
>> lst = lst2
>> del lst[2]
>> lst.append('y')
>> lst = lst3
>> lst.insert(0, 'x')
>> lst += [1,2]
>>
>> I think current window should also be acquired explicitly:
>>
>> with get_current_window():
>> type("some kind of snippet")
>>
>> For usage when a command should apply to all types of windows.
>
> I was skeptical of your suggestion at first but trying it out on an
example script made me see its appeal:
>
> notepad_main = start("Notepad")
> with notepad_main:
> write("Hello World!")
> save_dialogue = press(CTRL + 's')
> with save_dialogue:
> write("test.txt", into="File name")
> click("Save")
> click("Close")
>
> Forcing the library user to always use the "with ..." seems like
overkill though. I think the gained precision does not justify this
burden on the library user. Hm....
I don't see why that's a big deal, I've used AHK extensively and in my
experience you don't switch windows all that often. I think it's best to
optimize to have easy to type and read commands while you're working in
the same window.
I think you could argue that dialogs that belong to the main window
should be handled implicitly, though. I think for other windows it'd
definitely be good to use context managers, but for quick/simple dialogs
it's too much hassle, although for large, complex dialogs that have
inner tabs and require a lot of work, it again starts to make sense.
At the very least, for small dialogs it's sipmpler to do:
with press(CTRL + 's'):
write("test.txt", into="File name")
click("Save")
-m
--
Lark's Tongue Guide to Python: http://lightbird.net/larks/
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to others.
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