Comment by awkwardpotato

2 months ago

What's the matter with this? It's a clean builder pattern, the response is returned directly from send. I've certainly seen uglier Java

12 comments

awkwardpotato

freedomben 2 months ago

Just my opinion of course, but:

> What's the matter with this?

To me what makes this very "Java" is the arguments being passed, and all the OOP stuff that isn't providing any benefit and isn't really modeling real-world-ish objects (which IMHO is where OOP shines). .version(Version.HTTP_1_1) and .followRedirects(Redirect.NORMAL) I can sort of accept, but it requires knowing what class and value to pass, which is lookups/documentation reference. These are spread out over a bunch of classes. But we start getting so "Java" with the next ones. .connectTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(20)) (why can't I just pass 20 or 20_000 or something? Do we really need another class and method here?) .proxy(ProxySelector.of(new InetSocketAddress("proxy.example.com", 80))), geez that's complex. .authenticator(Authenticator.getDefault()), why not just pass bearer token or something? Now I have to look up this Authenticator class, initialize it, figure out where it's getting the credentials, how it's inserting them, how I put the credentials in the right place, etc. The important details are hidden/obscured behind needless abstraction layers IMHO.

I think Java is a good language, but most modern Java patterns can get ludicrous with the abstractions. When I was writing lots of Java, I was constantly setting up an ncat listener to hit so I could see what it's actually writing, and then have to hunt down where a certain thing is being done and figuring out the right way to get it to behave correctly. Contrast with a typical Typescript HTTP request and you can mostly tell just from reading the snippet what the actual HTTP request is going to look like.

looperhacks 2 months ago
> but it requires knowing what class and value to pass
Unless you use a text editor without any coding capabilities, your IDE should show you which values you can pass. The alternative is to have more methods, I guess?
> why can't I just pass 20 or 20_000 or something
20 what? Milliseconds? Seconds? Minutes? While I wouldn't write the full Duration.ofSeconds(20) (you can save the "Duration."), I don't understand how one could prefer a version that makes you guess the unit.
> proxy(ProxySelector.of(new InetSocketAddress("proxy.example.com", 80))), geez that's complex
Yes it is, can't add anything here. There's a tradeoff between "do the simple thing" and "make all things possible", and Java chooses the second here.
> .authenticator(Authenticator.getDefault()), why not just pass bearer token or something?
Because this Authenticator is meant for prompting a user interactively. I concur that this is very confusing, but if you want a Bearer token, just set the header.
- freedomben 2 months ago
  
  Fair points.
  > Unless you use a text editor without any coding capabilities, your IDE should show you which values you can pass. The alternative is to have more methods, I guess?
  Fair enough, as much as I don't like it, in Java world it's safe to assume everyone is using an IDE. And when your language is (essentially) dependent on an IDE, this becomes a non-issue (actually I might argue it's even a nice feature since it's very type safe).
  > 20 what? Milliseconds? Seconds? Minutes? While I wouldn't write the full Duration.ofSeconds(20) (you can save the "Duration."), I don't understand how one could prefer a version that makes you guess the unit.
  I would assume milliseconds and would probably have it in the method name, like timeoutMs(...) or something. I will say it's very readable, but if I was writing it I'd find it annoying. But optimizing for readability is a reasonable decision, especially since 80% of coding is reading rather than writing (on average).
Pay08 2 months ago

> why can't I just pass 20 or 20_000 or something? Do we really need another class and method here?
If you've ever dealt with time, you'll be grateful it's a duration and not some random int.

colejohnson66 2 months ago

The boilerplate of not having sane defaults. .NET is much simpler:

    using HttpClient client = new();
    HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync("https://...");
    if (response.StatusCode is HttpStatusCode.OK)
    {
        string s = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
        // ...
    }

lmz 2 months ago

That's just an example. It does have defaults: https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.net.... (search for "If this method is not invoked")
pjmlp 2 months ago
Yeah, so much simpler,
"Common IHttpClientFactory usage issues"
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/extensions/htt...
"Guidelines for using HttpClient"
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fundamentals/networ...
And this doesn't account for all gotchas as per .NET version, than only us old timers remember to cross check.
- colejohnson66 2 months ago
  
  I didn't mention IHttpClientFactory - just HttpClient. I will concede that ASP manages to be confusing quite often. As for the latter, guidelines are not requirements anymore than "RTFM" is; You can use HttpClient without reading the guidelines and be just fine.
  
  1 reply →

PxldLtd 2 months ago

Yeah this is all over Rust codebases too for good reason. The argument is that default params obfuscate behaviour and passing in a struct (in Rust) with defaults kneecaps your ability to validate parameters at compile time.

Pay08 2 months ago

It does have defaults, the above example manually sets everything to show people reading the docs what that looks like.

zahlman 2 months ago

> What's the matter with this? It's a clean builder pattern

I feel like you answered yourself. Java makes you do this by not supporting proper keyword arguments.