Question

NSDecimalNumber ackwardness

Asked by: gerry99

I just wrote some code that looks like this.

      NSDecimalNumber *low = [NSDecimalNumber decimalNumberWithDecimal:[NSNumber numberWithDouble:-1].decimalValue];

That gives me an number with a value of -1.  Is there a more efficient way to say this?  Who thought this was a good idea?  Why does decimal number not have a method that lets me create one with an assigned value?

This is the most verbose language I've had the misfortune of learning in a long time, and it does not give me glee.

Thanks,
Gerry

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Asked On
2009-10-13 at 15:42:33ID24809598
Tags

idiots bad design

Topic

Objective-C Programming Language

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: AGoodKeenManPosted on 2009-10-13 at 16:20:40ID: 25565848

I think the short answer is no. You could use [NSDecimalNumber zero] and substract 1, but its not very neat.
 It really depends on what you are doing with the number, as I understand it NSDecimalNumber is for base 10 arithmetic (I can't think of an example). If you just want to store the value in a collection eg. NSArray, then just use NSNumber.

I read this from the documentation:
You might consider the C interface if you dont need to treat decimal numbers as objectsthat is, if you dont need to store them in an object-oriented collection like an instance of NSArray or NSDictionary. You might also consider the C interface if you need maximum efficiency. The C interface is faster and uses less memory than the NSDecimalNumber class.

If you need mutability, you can combine the two interfaces. Use functions from the C interface and convert their results to instances of NSDecimalNumber.

 

by: gerry99Posted on 2009-10-13 at 17:01:04ID: 25566057

Thanks for the response.  I know experts-exchange is not the place for a flame war, but I find Objective C a total pain in the ass.  XCode on the mac is nice for code completion, but why does everything take some many characters?  Why is a routine called decimalNumberByMultiplyingBy?  Aren't the both the decimalNumber and at least one of the "By"s redundant?

And trying to use color [UIColor redColor]?  Why does color appear twice in that snippet?  Don't we already know that red is likely to be a color? since we are using a method on the color class?

These libraries appear to have been designed by idiots (or perhaps just Californians).

 

by: AGoodKeenManPosted on 2009-10-13 at 17:17:22ID: 25566125

I have no problem with the syntax, I think its to save ambiguity with properties and ivars. Your example would read like this:
NSColor *red = [UIColor colorRed];
[self doSomethingWithAColor:red];

The more time you spend with Cocoa the more you wonder why you persisted so long with others.

 

by: gerry99Posted on 2009-10-14 at 07:59:01ID: 25571265

I'd have to disagree with your last statement.  While I find some view controllers easy to work with, a lot of the other code seems to verbose.  I guess its a matter of style.

Getting back to NSDecimalNumber, I think my code that uses it will be very hard to understand and maintain.  (I'm trying to use it because this is a financial application.)  

Also I don 't think there is any good object oriented design reason why you cannot easily construct a NSDecimalNumber from known value.
ie.
NSDecimalNumber *num = [NSDecimalNumber decimalNumberWithDouble:12.34];

This should be part of the class, and even if it is you notice that I had to repeat the phrase "decimalNumber" 3 times!

 

by: fridomPosted on 2009-10-14 at 08:46:56ID: 25571887

You always can extend the class if you  like. I share your uneasiness about this, it's annoying. But if you do not like it you can extend it e.g by another protocol something like DNFactory or so.

NSDecimalNumber *num  = [DNFactory withDouble: aDouble]
is not that bad.  Of you can make it shorter just write a factory method in "plain old C"
NSDecimalNumber *num = newDecimalNumber(10.0);or just newDNd newDNi or the like

I think the names came a bit from Smalltalk where they are quite common. Why it looks that verbose in Objective C is clear it's because or the Type declarations. E.g but Java and C# have shared this also. And they just are starting to get rid of superfluous stuff.

To be honest what is nice with

DecimalNumber *num = new DecimalNumber(10.0) ?

or even worse
com.my_ompany.my_java_package.DecimalNumber num = new com.my_company.my_java_package.DecimalNumber(10.0) that kind of stuff can be seen over and over again in Java e.g. Ok you can shorten in with the proper imports but then you Java looks like this:
mport java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.security.Key;
import java.security.KeyStore;
import java.security.KeyStoreException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.Provider;
import java.security.Security;
import java.security.SignatureException;
import java.security.KeyStore.PrivateKeyEntry;
import java.security.cert.CertificateException;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;
import java.util.Enumeration;

definitly ugly.

I once read a harsh comment about the "nonmerits" of modern IDEs but if you do not have help for such kind of Java you really get mad about it.

Regards
Friedrich

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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