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I think OP's point about building huge systems with pipes is well taken. They can become confusing when the break and over-use can be a code smell. Their power

I think OP's point about building huge systems with pipes is well taken. They can become confusing when the break and over-use can be a code smell. Their power, as you point it, is in the ability to jump into any statement and add another action with minimal syntax. It's extremely useful while iterating on development because you can quickly check that something works (or check on what is happening).

dnautics 6y ago
I think it also encourages a declarative style of programming, so that's a win if you ask me, especially for large systems, though I can't measure this.
jolux 6y ago
If you’re chaining more than three or four things together I think you’re definitely doing something wrong but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone do that in Elixir.
- dnautics 6y ago
  Not an antipattern for nimble_parsec: https://github.com/ityonemo/zigler/blob/fe845a9fbbfef92da8aba99ffd599a2e6551e807/lib/zig/doc/parser.ex#L88 https://github.com/ityonemo/zigler/blob/fe845a9fbbfef92da8ab... Plus think of how much easier that pipe makes it for you to understand what is going on.
  - jolux 6y ago
    That’s a very beautiful usage of it. I hadn’t thought of it as a way to construct DSLs, but it makes a lot of sense here.
  - owl57 6y ago
    Looks like Haskell-like do notation would be helpful.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      do you feel like the code presented is broken? I don't. Could it be better? Maybe... But how much? Is it worth a whole new pattern to learn?
- cultofmetatron 6y ago
  the entire ecto api is built upon chaining statements together. I have a few queries that are 8-10 statements long.
  - jolux 6y ago
    Good point, I don’t use Ecto so I wasn’t aware of this.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  My longest pipe chain in Elixir so far (with ~1 year of usage) is this[1], where I build a GraphQL context from an HTTP session. I personally think it's clean enough, but your comment made me wonder if it can be better. [1] https://github.com/RodrigoLeiteF/craftup/blob/main/backend/lib/craftup_web/context.ex#L16 https://github.com/RodrigoLeiteF/craftup/blob/main/backend/l...
- 1_player 6y ago
  I disagree. I think a common antipattern is piping only one thing. This is good and readable: nuclear_missile |> open_hatch() |> open_fuel_lines() |> fire_thrusters(:all) |> configure_gps(%Coordinates{...}) This is unnecessary: word_count = words |> Enum.count() This is better: word_count = Enum.count(words) Pipes read like a list of bullet points. We can easily deal with up to a dozen bullet points, but a single bullet point is bad grammar style.

dnautics 6y ago

I think it also encourages a declarative style of programming, so that's a win if you ask me, especially for large systems, though I can't measure this.

jolux 6y ago

If you’re chaining more than three or four things together I think you’re definitely doing something wrong but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone do that in Elixir.

dnautics 6y ago
Not an antipattern for nimble_parsec: https://github.com/ityonemo/zigler/blob/fe845a9fbbfef92da8aba99ffd599a2e6551e807/lib/zig/doc/parser.ex#L88 https://github.com/ityonemo/zigler/blob/fe845a9fbbfef92da8ab... Plus think of how much easier that pipe makes it for you to understand what is going on.
- jolux 6y ago
  That’s a very beautiful usage of it. I hadn’t thought of it as a way to construct DSLs, but it makes a lot of sense here.
- owl57 6y ago
  Looks like Haskell-like do notation would be helpful.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    do you feel like the code presented is broken? I don't. Could it be better? Maybe... But how much? Is it worth a whole new pattern to learn?
cultofmetatron 6y ago
the entire ecto api is built upon chaining statements together. I have a few queries that are 8-10 statements long.
- jolux 6y ago
  Good point, I don’t use Ecto so I wasn’t aware of this.
Kaze404 6y ago
My longest pipe chain in Elixir so far (with ~1 year of usage) is this[1], where I build a GraphQL context from an HTTP session. I personally think it's clean enough, but your comment made me wonder if it can be better. [1] https://github.com/RodrigoLeiteF/craftup/blob/main/backend/lib/craftup_web/context.ex#L16 https://github.com/RodrigoLeiteF/craftup/blob/main/backend/l...
1_player 6y ago
I disagree. I think a common antipattern is piping only one thing. This is good and readable: nuclear_missile |> open_hatch() |> open_fuel_lines() |> fire_thrusters(:all) |> configure_gps(%Coordinates{...}) This is unnecessary: word_count = words |> Enum.count() This is better: word_count = Enum.count(words) Pipes read like a list of bullet points. We can easily deal with up to a dozen bullet points, but a single bullet point is bad grammar style.