Quickduck

I really don’t like inefficiency in code. Some people would say I’m quite the coding nazi when it comes to stuff like this; I’m sorry, but I just don’t like having code that exists just because someone thinks “it makes it read more like english”. Sorry, but C# != English.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for writing clear, concise code. I strongly encourage using descriptive method names, and fully expressed variable names (e.g. “requestContext” instead of “rc”). But all I’m saying is, don’t over-do it! Here are three small tips you can use to work around small inefficiencies in your code.

Use System.Math
How many times have you come across a segment of code like this?

if (waitTimeMillis < MaxPingTime) {
    waitTimeMillis *= 2;
    if (waitTimeMillis > MaxPingTime) {
        waitTimeMillis = MaxPingTime;
    }
}

Sure, it looks pretty harmless, but we need to read three lines of code to work out that there is an upper limit on waitTime. We can better express that using the Math.Min function:

if (waitTimeMillis < MaxPingTime) {
    waitTimeMillis = Math.Min(waitTimeMillis * 2, MaxPingTime);
}

A boolean is a boolean
I remember one of our lecturers at uni first pointed this one out to me when we were learning java. Comparing a boolean expression to true or false is redundant - just evaluate the expression instead. So, don't do this - ever:

if (MyClass.IsInitialised == true) {
    RunPostInitialisation();
}

No folks, I don't want to see "== true" or "== false" in your code, ever. I guess it could be worse, you could have "!= true"... - either way, lets keep it simple:

if (MyClass.IsInitialised) {
    RunPostInitialisation();
}

Use ternary expressions instead of if/else
Do you really need that if/else clause?

if (house.NumberOfOccupants > 1) {
    house.MaximumNumberOfPets = 3;
} else {
    house.MaximumNumberOfPets = 2;
}

There are circumstances where an if/else clause may be justifiable; but in general, they aren't needed. A ternary expression is much more succinct:

house.MaximumNumberOfPets = house.NumberOfOccupants > 1 ? 3 : 2;

Where the values that you're using for the true/false evaluation of the expression are a bit more complex, you can separate this on to multiple lines to read a bit more clearly:

Type type = Instruments.ContainsKey(instrumentType)
    ? Instruments[instrumentType]
    : UnknownInstrumentType;

Code better!