[LRUG] Comparable Null Objects

[tom at codon.com]

On 15 Jul 2015, at 22:44, Duncan Stuart <dgmstuart at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do you think I'm applying the idea incorrectly or inappropriately?

FWIW I do think you’re misapplying the idea, for the simple reason that it doesn’t really help here. The null object pattern is helpful when there’s some protocol that can sensibly be replicated by the null object; your `def to_s; 'Unknown'; end` is a good example. But there’s no easy way for a null object to conform to the expectations of Date#<=>, so it’s not going to make things better.

My advice would be to avoid trickery entirely and take a different piece of advice from Sandi’s talk: extract a role. Make a new kind of object whose sole responsibility is the (not entirely trivial) logic of ordering things by date when some of them may not have dates.

There are a few ways of doing this, but one example might be to have a DateRank class:

DateRank = Struct.new(:maybe_date) do
  def <=>(other)
    if maybe_date.nil?
      1
    elsif other.maybe_date.nil?
      -1
    else
      maybe_date <=> other.maybe_date
    end
  end
end

(Substitute `case maybe_date … when NoExpectedDate` for `if nil?` if you choose to use null objects for other reasons — the two ideas are orthogonal.)

And then you can do `events.sort_by(&DateRank.method(:new))` or whatever.

I talk about this idea a bit in http://codon.com/a-lever-for-the-mind#poker if you’re interested.

Cheers,
-Tom