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Comment by buggy6257 | Hacker News Reader

> sometimes reducing it to a one line lambda.

Please don't do this :) Readable code is better than clever code!

Are you telling me you've never seen code like this:

  var ageLookup = new Dictionary<AgeRange, List<Member>>();
  foreach (var member in members) {
    var ageRange = member.AgeRange;
    if (ageLookup.ContainsKey(ageRange)) {
      ageLookup[ageRange].Add(member);
    } else {
      ageLookup[ageRange] = new List<Member>();
      ageLookup[ageRange].Add(member);
    }
  }

which could instead be:

  var ageLookup = members.ToLookup(m => m.AgeRange, m => m);

I'm of the opinion that

  var ageLookup = new Dictionary<AgeRange, List<Member>>();
  foreach (var member in members) {
    ageLookup.getOrCreate(member.AgeRange, List::new).add(member);
  }

is more readable in the long-term... (less predefined methods/concepts to learn).

Where is `getOrCreate` defined? Is it a custom extension method? There's also a chance we're thinking in different languages. I was writing C#, yours looks a bit more like C++ maybe?

Readability incorporates familiarity but also conciseness. I suppose it depends what else is going on in the codebase. I have a database access class in one of my solutions where `ToLookup` is used 15 times; yes you have to learn the concept, but it's an inbuilt method and it's a massive benefit once you grok it.

Sometimes a lambda is more readable. "lambda x : x if x else 1" is pretty understandable and doesn't need to be it's own separately defined function.

I should also note that development style also depends on tools, so if your IDE makes inline functions more readable in it's display, it's fine to use concisely defined lambdas.

Readablity is a personal preference thing at some point after all.

My cleverest one-liners will block me when I come back to them unless I write a few paragraphs of explanation as well.

>> Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian Kernighan

https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws#kernighans-law

Ymmv. Know your language and how it treats such functions on the low level. It's probably fine for Javascript, it might be a disaster in C++ (indirectly).

> "lambda x : x if x else 1"

I think what you're looking for is "x or 1"

Especially "clever" code that is AI generated!

At least with human-written clever code you can trust that somebody understood it at one point but the idea of trusting AI generated code that is "clever" makes my skin crawl

Also, the ways in which a (sane) human will screw-up tend to follow internal logic that other humans have learned to predict, recognize, or understand.

Most devs I've worked with are sane, unfortunately the rare exceptions were not easy to predict or understand.

Who are all these all these engineers who just take whatever garbage they are suggested, and who, without understanding it, submit it in a CL?

And was the code they were writing before they had an LLM any better?

> Who are all these all these engineers who just take whatever garbage they are suggested, and who, without understanding it, submit it in a CL?

My guess would be engineers who are "forced" to use AI, already mailed management it would be an error and are interviewing for their next company. Malicious compliance: vibe code those new features and let maintainability and security be a problem for next employees / consultants.

Who says that the one line lambda is less clear that a convoluted 10-line mess doing dumb stuff like if(fooIsTrue) { map["blah"] = bool(fooIsTrue); } else if (!fooIsTrue) { map["blah"] = false; }

My experience in unmanaged legacy code bases. If it's an actual one liner than sure. Use your ternaries and closures. But there is some gnarly stuff done in some attempt to minimize lines of code. Most of us aren't in some competitive coding organization.

And I know it's intentional, but yes. Add some mindfulness to your implementation

Map["blah"] = fooIsTrue;

I do see your example in the wild sometimes. I've probably done it myself as well and never caught it.

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