Clearest Code Challenge: Honorable Mention

Honorable mention to Thomas Eyde. His submission uses a new class, so he gets points for trying to be OO. I don't think this approach was fruitfull, though; the result is pretty complex to my eyes.

He’s also the only one who submitted legal code. Every other submission had problems that a compiler would have a hard time with.

Here’s Thomas’s submission, pretty printed for your enjoyment:

using System.Windows.Forms;

using System.Drawing;

class C : Form

{

    Button _buttonOK;

    Button _buttonCancel;

    void F()

    {

        int margin = 12;

        ControlMover okMover = new ControlMover(_buttonOK, this.ClientSize, margin);

        okMover.MoveLeft();

        okMover.MoveUp();

        ControlMover cancelMover = new ControlMover(_buttonCancel, _buttonOK.Location, margin);

        cancelMover.MoveLeft();

    }

}

class ControlMover

{

    Control _control;

    int _margin;

    public ControlMover(Control c, Point location, int margin)

    {

        _margin = margin;

        _control = c;

        _control.Location = location;

    }

    public ControlMover(Control c, Size location, int margin)

: this (c, new Point(location), margin)

    {

    }

    public void MoveLeft(int delta)

    {

        _control.Location = Offset(-delta - _margin, 0);

    }

    Point Offset(int deltaX, int deltaY)

    {

        Point location = _control.Location;

        location.Offset(deltaX, deltaY);

        return location;

    }

    public void MoveLeft()

    {

        MoveLeft(_control.Width);

    }

    public void MoveUp(int delta)

    {

        _control.Location = Offset(0, -delta - _margin);

    }

    public void MoveUp()

    {

        MoveUp(_control.Height);

    }

}

Does it work? I’m not really sure. I hoped that the clearest solution would be trivial to verify by inspection.

It looks to me like it places the OK button in the bottom-right corner of the form, with the Cancel button to its left. That’s not what I asked for, but it’s OK because:

· It’s easy to see by inspection.

· It’s probably easy to fix.

Those last bullets are indications that Thomas got something right.

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 24, 2004
  Thank you for the kudos.
  
  I know the buttons are misplaced. I didn't care to fix it when I discovered the mistake.
  
  Yes, the code works. I have never moved controls in code, so it took some investigation and trial and error.
  
  I would use a little more energy to make the code clearer if it were production code.