Living in the Tech Avalanche Generation

while (some_condition)
{
    switch(some_arg)
    {
        case “arg1″
            if(another_bool)
            {
                //…….etc 
            }
            else
            {
                while(yet_another_condition)
                {
                    if(nest_some_more)
                    {
                        //…ect
                    }
                }
            }
            break;
        case “arg2″
            if(!another_bool)
            {
                //…….etc 
            }
            else
            {
                while(!yet_another_condition)
                {
                    if(!nest_some_more)
                    {
                        //…ect
                    }
                }
            }
            break;
        case “arg4″
            //more of the same;
            break;
        case “arg5″
            ////more of the same;
            break;
    }
    if (some_bool)
    {
        while(another_condition)
        {
            if(another_bool)
            {
                //…….etc
            }
            else
            {
                while(yet_another_condition)
                {
                    for(int i=0;i>10;i++)
                    {
                        if(oh_my_god_another_bool)
                        {
                            //….etc
                        }
                        else if(can_things_go_on_like_this)
                        {
                            //….etc
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            //….etc
                        }
                    }
                 }
            }
        }
    }
    else
        while(here_we_go_again_condition)
        {
            if(and_here_we_go_again_another_bool)
            {
                //…….etc
            }
            else
            {
                while(im_in_agony_now)
                {
                    for(int i=0;i>10;i++)
                    {
                        if(my_brain_explodes)
                        {
                            //….etc
                        }
                        else if(the_project_fails)
                        {
                            //….etc
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            //….etc
                        }
                    }
                    switch(some_arg)
                    {
                        case “arg1″
                            //etc;
                            break;
                        case “arg2″
                            //etc;
                            break;
                        case “arg4″
                            //etc;
                            break;
                        case “arg5″
                            //etc;
                            break;
                    }
                 }
            }
        }
    }
}

Lets face it, we have all been guilty of this at some stage and on likely more than one occasion but when recognised for the misdemeanour that it is, one should immediately do penance and mend one’s ways. So rather than merely announcing the message to cease this practice haste with, it would be remiss to let the moment pass without making some recommendations as to what to do as an alternative. There is bad design at work here: if we think of our methods in terms of behaviour then each method should implement one concise behaviour and if you want keep your concerns separated and observe the SOLID principles, then your classes or modules should be following the single responsibility principle. Long methods / functions usually try to express several concerns in one very crowded space, making the code hard to understand and progressively difficult to maintain - time to refactor!