Programming without if-statements?

Question

I remember some time (years, probably) ago I read on Stackoverflow about the charms of programming with as few if-tests as possible. This question is somewhat relevant but I think the stress was on using many small functions that returned values determined by tests depending on the parameter they receive. A very simple example would be using this:

int i = 5; 
bool iIsSmall = isSmall(i);

with isSmall() looking like this:

private bool isSmall(int number)
{
    return (i < 10);
}

instead of just doing this:

int i = 5;
bool isSmall;
if (i < 10) {
    isSmall = true;
} else {
    isSmall = false;
}

(Logically this code is just sample code. It is not part of a program I am making.)

The reason for doing this, I believe, was because it looks nicer and makes a programmer less prone to logical errors. If this coding convention is applied correctly, you would see virtually no if-tests anywhere, except in functions whose only purpose is to do that test.

Now, my question is: is there any documentation about this convention? Is there anyplace where you can see wild arguments between supporters and opposers of this style? I tried searching for the Stackoverflow post that introduced me to this, but I can't find it anymore.

Lastly, I hope this question doesn't get shot down because I am not asking for a solution to a problem. I am simply hoping to hear more about this coding style and maybe increase the quality of all coding I will do in the future.

Solution 1

This whole "if" vs "no if" thing makes me think of the Expression Problem¹. Basically, it's an observation that programming with if statements or without if statements is a matter of encapsulation and extensibility and that sometimes it's better to use if statements² and sometimes it's better to use dynamic dispatching with methods / function pointers.

When we want to model something, there are two axes to worry about:

1. The different cases (or types) of the inputs we need to deal with.
2. The different operations we want to perform over these inputs.

One way to implement this sort of thing is with if statements / pattern matching / the visitor pattern:

data List = Nil | Cons Int List

length xs = case xs of
  Nil -> 0
  Cons a as -> 1 + length x

concat xs ys = case ii of
  Nil -> jj
  Cons a as -> Cons a (concat as ys)

The other way is to use object orientation:

data List = {
    length :: Int
    concat :: (List -> List)
}

nil = List {
    length = 0,
    concat = (\ys -> ys)
}

cons x xs = List {
    length = 1 + length xs,
    concat = (\ys -> cons x (concat xs ys))
}

It's not hard to see that the first version using if statements makes it easy to add new operations on our data type: just create a new function and do a case analysis inside it. On the other hand, this makes it hard to add new cases to our data type since that would mean going back through the program and modifying all the branching statements.

The second version is kind of the opposite. It's very easy to add new cases to the datatype: just create a new "class" and tell what to do for each of the methods we need to implement. However, it's now hard to add new operations to the interface since this means adding a new method for all the old classes that implemented the interface.

There are many different approaches that languages use to try to solve the Expression Problem and make it easy to add both new cases and new operations to a model. However, there are pros and cons to these solutions³ so in general I think it's a good rule of thumb to choose between OO and if statements depending on what axis you want to make it easier to extend stuff.

Anyway, going back to your question there are couple of things I would like to point out:

The first one is that I think the OO "mantra" of getting rid of all if statements and replacing them with method dispatching has more to do with how most OO languages don't have typesafe Algebraic Data Types than it has to do with "if statemsnts" being bad for encapsulation. Since the only way to be type safe is to use method calls you are encouraged to convert programs using if statements into programs using the Visitor Pattern⁴ or worse: convert programs that should be using the visitor pattern into programs using simple method dispatch, therefore making extensibility easy in the wrong direction.

The second thing is that I'm not a big fan of breaking things into functions just because you can. In particular, I find that style where all the functions have just 5 lines and call tons of other functions is pretty hard to read.

Finally, I think your example doesn't really get rid of if statements. Essentially, what you are doing is having a function from Integers to a new datatype (with two cases, one for Big and one for Small) and then you still need to use if statements when working with the datatype:

data Size = Big | Small

toSize :: Int -> Size
toSize n = if n < 10 then Small else Big

someOp :: Size -> String
someOp Small = "Wow, its small"
someOp Big   = "Wow, its big"

Going back to the expression problem point of view, the advantage of defining our toSize / isSmall function is that we put the logic of choosing what case our number fits in a single place and that our functions can only operate on the case after that. However, this does not mean that we have removed if statements from our code! If we have the toSize being a factory function and we have Big and Small be classes sharing an interface then yes, we will have removed if statements from our code. However, if our isSmall just returns a boolean or enum then there will be just as many if statements as there were before. (and you should choose what implementation to use depending if you want to make it easier to add new methods or new cases - say Medium - in the future)

---

1 - The name of the problem comes from the problem where you have an "expression" datatype (numbers, variables, addition/multiplication of subexpressions, etc) and want to implement things like evaluation functions and other things.

2 - Or pattern matching over Algebraic Data Types, if you want to be more type safe...

3 - For example, you might have to define all multimethods on the "top level" where the "dispatcher" can see them. This is a limitation compared to the general case since you can use if statements (and lambdas) nested deeply inside other code.

4 - Essentially a "church encoding" of an algebraic data type

Solution 2

I've never heard of such a convection. I don't see how it works, anyway. Surely the only point of having a iIsSmall is to later branch on it (possibly in combination with other values)?

What I have heard of is an argument to avoid having variables like iIsSmall at all. iIsSmall is just storing the result of a test you made, so that you can later use that result to make some decision. So why not just test the value of i at the point where you need to make the decision? i.e., instead of:

int i = 5; 
bool iIsSmall = isSmall(i);
...
<code>
...
if (iIsSmall) {
    <do something because i is small>
} else {
    <do something different because i is not small>
}

just write:

int i = 5
...
<code>
...
if (isSmall(i)) {
    <do something because i is small>
} else {
    <do something different because i is not small>
}

That way you can tell at the branch point what you're actually branching on because it's right there. That's not hard in this example anyway, but if the test was complicated you're probably not going to be able to encode the whole thing in the variable name.

It's also safer. There's no danger that the name iIsSmall is misleading because you changed the code so that it was testing something else, or because i was actually altered after you called isSmall so that it is not necessarily small anymore, or because someone just picked a dumb variable name, etc, etc.

Obviously this doesn't always work. If the isSmall test is expensive and you need to branch on its result many times, you don't want to execute it many times. You also might not want to duplicate the code of that call many times, unless it's trivial. Or you might want to return the flag to be used by a caller who doesn't know about i (though then you could just return isSmall(i), rather than store it in a variable and then return the variable).

---

Btw, the separate function saves nothing in your example. You can include (i < 10) in an assignment to a bool variable just as easily as in a return statement in a bool function. i.e. you could just as easily write bool isSmall = i < 10; - it's this that avoids the if statement, not the separate function. Code of the form if (test) { x = true; } else { x = false; } or if (test) { return true; } else { return false; } is always silly; just use x = test or return test.

Solution 3

Is it really a convention? Should one just kill minimal if-constructs just because there could be frustration over it?

OK, if statements tend to grow out of control, especially if many special cases are added over time. Branch after branch is added and at the end no one is able to comprehend what everything does without spending hours of time and some cups of coffee into this grown instance of spaghetti-code.

But is it really a good idea to put everything in seperate functions? Code should be reusable. Code should be readable. But a function call just creates the need to look it up further up in the source file. If all ifs are put away in this way, you just skip around in the source file all the time. Does this support readability?

Or consider an if-statement which is not reused anywhere. Should it really go into a separate function, just for the sake of convention? there is some overhead involved here, too. Performance issues could be relevant in this context, too.

What I am trying to say: following coding conventions is good. Style is important. But there are exceptions. Just try to write good code that fits into your project and keep the future in mind. In the end, coding conventions are just guidelines which try to help us to produce good code without enforcing anything on us.