Comments on: A MooTools Code Riddle For You

By: Aaron N.

Aaron N. — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:44:05 +0000

I would express it in a slightly different way than @Jenna. I would say that the code we’re used to looking at is often very legible because it is very explicit in nature. I.e. what the code is doing is very apparent. But at the heart of the framework lives some exceptionally abstract code that is difficult to understand. Methods that allow you to build much more complex things on top of them are often gibberish. Look at Fx.js – a lot of it looks totally unusable, but it’s the abstract quality of the code that allows you to build Fx.Morph, Fx.Tween, Fx.Elements and others on top of it. Figuring out code like that presented here helps you both learn how to understand the meaning and usefulness of the heart of MooTools (and JavaScript), but it will also show you the virtue of designing your own code that way.

By: Jenna Fox

Jenna Fox — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:24:14 +0000

@Stan: Sure, clean easy to read code may be easy to read, might help you get the job done quick. We have a lot of clean code around. I don’t think I’ve ever learnt anything of value from reading clean code. Just gotten the job done. It’s the crazy code, the inventive endlessly recursive mega-chained gibberish that teaches and empowers me and many others. :)

Lets not overdo clean code. Mootools is after all an open source project. What drives Mootools, the very core of it’s existence, like most open source, is to have fun and learn, as well as getting things done. The more fun you take out of the equation, the less people will want to work on the framework, and that has a very direct relationship with the quality and dependability of the framework.

So in summary, fun is good. That is all.

By: Stan Angeloff

Stan Angeloff — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:25:24 +0000

@Aaron: you are right in everything you said. I love creative ‘code’. I think my key point here is – let’s do it in moderation; let’s not overdo it. Yes, it certainly was fun especially at 3am.

By: Aaron N.

Aaron N. — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:21:51 +0000

Stan, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun every now and then. Valerio sent this to me because he thought it was interesting. He wanted to see if he could solve a problem but this was just an exercise. When working on the MooTools core we often come up with very abstract things that are kind of beautiful to look at but ultimately may or may not make it in the release. Putting this code in front of everyone here makes them look at it and parse it and consider it. That’s a good exercise if you ask me, and a fun one, too.

By: Stan Angeloff

Stan Angeloff — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:05:37 +0000

@Aaron: I want to disagree. I don’t think we should have more of these. One of the coolest things about Mootools is the code: it is simply child’s play to navigate around… or should I say was. I don’t think it is right to encourage developers to come up with riddles like the one above. As I did find out myself, it takes quite a bit of time to ‘run’ the code in your head. Mootools has a lot of great features and if we are to come up with a quiz, let’s focus on those rather than bang our heads with riddles as such?

By: Aaron N.

Aaron N. — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:19:29 +0000

Ionel, that’s how generics work in MooTools.

@Garrick, I’ll try and come up with another one. Feel free to send me your own if you have something really abstract and creative.

By: Ionel

Ionel — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:45:15 +0000

This would only work with generics functions that take as the first param an object that we want to “duck”

By: Garrick

Garrick — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:50:06 +0000

That was awesome! Another!

By: Tom Occhino

Tom Occhino — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:16:39 +0000

I think we’re going to have to implement a MooTools quiz, that all devs need to score at least an A on. Jan and I compiled some JavaScript gotchas a while back. Let’s see who the real ninjas really are… ;)

By: Jenna Fox

Jenna Fox — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:01:25 +0000

I’d rather a carrot than a gold star, but, whatever. :)