In this second post we look at chapter 10: Construct Your Classes from Short, Focused Methods. The first thing that comes to mind is of course that methods should be short. Some years ago my rule of thumb was that a method should fit on the screen. But now that I’m using a 27’‘ screen that doesn’t hold true anymore, of course. Also this misses the important point of the chapter and that is: use the composed method technique for your methods. Paraphrasing the book the method written using the composed method technique should have three characteristics:

1. They should do a single thing only
2. They should operate on a single conceptual level, i.e. they shouldn’t mix high-level and low-level things
3. They need to have a descriptive names, i.e. names that describe the purpose of the method

Adhering to these rules gives you nicely structured methods that should be easily understandable and as a side benefit they are also easily testable as each method only does one small thing and therefore there’s no need for extensive mocking and setting up context.