Feedback about SmallLint

> Hi guys. After our meeting at Lille, I did a pass of SmallLint over Fuel project. I have to say that I enjoyed the tool and that. I love the manifiesto idea. I love to store metada and to be able to reject rules and scenarios to avoid having false positives again in the future. In addition, it looks like I had less false positive than with other tools. However, there were a couple of rules that I don't understand or may suggest something:
>
> 1) First, apart form showing the package between parenthesis, I would also show the protocol (category). Because some rules play with that, so it is handy if you can directly see them there, otherwise you need to browse the code.
>
> 2) RBContainsRule is not clear for me. " 'Checks for the common code fragment: "(aCollection detect: [:each | ''some condition''] ifNone: [nil]) ~= nil". contains: can simplify this code to "aCollection contains: [:each | ''some condition'']". Not only is the contains: variant shorter, it better signifies what the code is doing.'"
> That is not very true. #contains answers true or false, while detect:ifNone:[] answers whatever, and in your example it is nil. So, the answer will be different and hence it is not the same. Ok, in your example, you compare after with == nil... but... I don't really see a use case. For example, in my case it detected:
>
> classNamed: className
>
>     ^ (migrations
>         detect: [:m | m sourceClassName = className ]
>         ifNone: [ ^ self globalClassNamed: className ])
>         targetClass.
>
>
> 3) RBLawOfDemeterRule: maybe you can exclude string concatenation?  (#,)  because it detected a lot of messages like this:
> signalWith: aGlobalName and: aSelector
>     ^ self signal: 'Method ', aGlobalName, '>>#', aSelector, ' not found.'
>
> Also, what about excluding messages like #asXXX. For example, here it detected "self signature asByteArray". Is that completly breaking the law of demeter? mmm I don't think so.
>
> verifySignatureFrom: aDecoder
>
>     | streamSignature |
>     streamSignature := ByteArray new: self signature size.
>     aDecoder nextEncodedBytesInto: streamSignature.
>     (self signature asByteArray = streamSignature) ifFalse: [
>         FLBadSignature
>             signalCurrentSignature: self signature
>             streamSignature: streamSignature  ].
>
>
> 4) RBSentNotImplementedRule:  I didn't understand why it has selected:
>
> largeIdentityHash
>
>     <primitive: 75>
>     self primitiveFailed
>
> both messages are implemented :(
>
>
> 5) RBClassInstVarNotInitializedRule could be smarter and search not only for #initialize but for #initializeXXX. Lots of times, I initialize my objects with data, using a particular nitialize method, such as:
> initializeWithBehaviors: someBehaviors extensionMethods: someExtensionMethods
> so the rule says there is no initialize...but I have that one ;)
>
>
> That's all the feedback so far. It helped me to find some things to improve so thanks!
>
>
> --
> Mariano
> http://marianopeck.wordpress.com
>

> 2) RBContainsRule is not clear for me. " 'Checks for the common code
> fragment: "(aCollection detect: [:each | ''some condition''] ifNone: [nil])
> ~= nil". contains: can simplify this code to "aCollection contains: [:each |
> ''some condition'']". Not only is the contains: variant shorter, it better
> signifies what the code is doing.'"
> That is not very true. #contains answers true or false, while
> detect:ifNone:[] answers whatever, and in your example it is nil. So, the
> answer will be different and hence it is not the same. Ok, in your example,
> you compare after with == nil... but... I don't really see a use case. For
> example, in my case it detected:
>
> classNamed: className
>
>     ^ (migrations
>         detect: [:m | m sourceClassName = className ]
>         ifNone: [ ^ self globalClassNamed: className ])
>         targetClass.

> 3) RBLawOfDemeterRule: maybe you can exclude string concatenation?  (#,)
> because it detected a lot of messages like this:
> signalWith: aGlobalName and: aSelector
>     ^ self signal: 'Method ', aGlobalName, '>>#', aSelector, ' not found.'
>
> Also, what about excluding messages like #asXXX. For example, here it
> detected "self signature asByteArray". Is that completly breaking the law of
> demeter? mmm I don't think so.
>
> verifySignatureFrom: aDecoder
>
>     | streamSignature |
>     streamSignature := ByteArray new: self signature size.
>     aDecoder nextEncodedBytesInto: streamSignature.
>     (self signature asByteArray = streamSignature) ifFalse: [
>         FLBadSignature
>             signalCurrentSignature: self signature
>             streamSignature: streamSignature  ].

> Some more feedback:
>
> 6) RBAbstractClassRule is confusing. "Checks for references to classes that have subclassResponsibility methods. Such references might be creating instances of the abstract class or more commonly being used as the argument to an isKindOf: message which is considered bad style."  In my case, it found FLBenchmarkRunner because it has INSTANCE side messages with subclassResponsability. However, all references to the class FLBenchmarkRunner  send class side messages to it. So.... maybe  It can exclude class side messages that do not end up sending  #new or #basicNew?
>
> 7) how does the Manifiesto class envolves while the real packages are changed (class and methods are renamed or removed) ?
> If a method class is removed then I guess it is easy to remove the metadada associated to them. But what about if a method change? you cannot be sure if the rule exclusion still make sense or not. So, I guess you should remove the metadata as well ?
>
> 8) RBMethodHasNoTimeStampRule  seems to have a problem with Traits because it shows me lots of methods without timestamp and they all result to come from a trait.
>
> 9) Sometimes, clicking on a method raises an error. Find attached PhaorDebug.log
>
> 10) RBSubclassResponsibilityNotDefinedRule could show me WHICH are the leaf subclasses that do NOT implement the method ... otherwise it is complicated to find it.
>
> 11) I don't like storing the Manifiest class in the default/main package. I changed ManifiestFuel to be in Fuel-SmallLint rather than Fuel but then, as soon as I run the rules again, it moves back the class to Fuel. Can't it check if the class already exist in Smalltalk globals and if true just use it and don't move it ?
>
> 12) It would be nice to group rules by criteria. I saw you have #group in each rule so I guess it is a matter of time to have the UI aware of that, right?
>
>
> Cheers
>
>
>  
> Stef
>
>
>
> > Hi guys. After our meeting at Lille, I did a pass of SmallLint over Fuel project. I have to say that I enjoyed the tool and that. I love the manifiesto idea. I love to store metada and to be able to reject rules and scenarios to avoid having false positives again in the future. In addition, it looks like I had less false positive than with other tools. However, there were a couple of rules that I don't understand or may suggest something:
> >
> > 1) First, apart form showing the package between parenthesis, I would also show the protocol (category). Because some rules play with that, so it is handy if you can directly see them there, otherwise you need to browse the code.
> >
> > 2) RBContainsRule is not clear for me. " 'Checks for the common code fragment: "(aCollection detect: [:each | ''some condition''] ifNone: [nil]) ~= nil". contains: can simplify this code to "aCollection contains: [:each | ''some condition'']". Not only is the contains: variant shorter, it better signifies what the code is doing.'"
> > That is not very true. #contains answers true or false, while detect:ifNone:[] answers whatever, and in your example it is nil. So, the answer will be different and hence it is not the same. Ok, in your example, you compare after with == nil... but... I don't really see a use case. For example, in my case it detected:
> >
> > classNamed: className
> >
> >     ^ (migrations
> >         detect: [:m | m sourceClassName = className ]
> >         ifNone: [ ^ self globalClassNamed: className ])
> >         targetClass.
> >
> >
> > 3) RBLawOfDemeterRule: maybe you can exclude string concatenation?  (#,)  because it detected a lot of messages like this:
> > signalWith: aGlobalName and: aSelector
> >     ^ self signal: 'Method ', aGlobalName, '>>#', aSelector, ' not found.'
> >
> > Also, what about excluding messages like #asXXX. For example, here it detected "self signature asByteArray". Is that completly breaking the law of demeter? mmm I don't think so.
> >
> > verifySignatureFrom: aDecoder
> >
> >     | streamSignature |
> >     streamSignature := ByteArray new: self signature size.
> >     aDecoder nextEncodedBytesInto: streamSignature.
> >     (self signature asByteArray = streamSignature) ifFalse: [
> >         FLBadSignature
> >             signalCurrentSignature: self signature
> >             streamSignature: streamSignature  ].
> >
> >
> > 4) RBSentNotImplementedRule:  I didn't understand why it has selected:
> >
> > largeIdentityHash
> >
> >     <primitive: 75>
> >     self primitiveFailed
> >
> > both messages are implemented :(
> >
> >
> > 5) RBClassInstVarNotInitializedRule could be smarter and search not only for #initialize but for #initializeXXX. Lots of times, I initialize my objects with data, using a particular nitialize method, such as:
> > initializeWithBehaviors: someBehaviors extensionMethods: someExtensionMethods
> > so the rule says there is no initialize...but I have that one ;)
> >
> >
> > That's all the feedback so far. It helped me to find some things to improve so thanks!
> >
> >
> > --
> > Mariano
> > http://marianopeck.wordpress.com
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Mariano
> http://marianopeck.wordpress.com
>
> <PharoDebug.log>