Ext.getCmp and developers using it as a crutch

[jay@moduscreate.com]

Does anyone else feel that Ext.getCmp is unnecessarily used as a crutch by new developers? I'm finding case after case where developers are creating extensions (pre-configured classes), using Ext.getCmp *inside* of their classes.

What can we do to minimize this?


UPDATE :: Added screencast:

[mitchellsimoens]

Idiots will be idiots and will always be idiots. 'this' (scope of course) can be very powerful if used correctly or at all. I'm no master programmer but even I know that using getCmp is not a good practice to have.

About your question.... You can't control what others do. They will learn that eventually things will go terribly wrong for them if they keep to that practice. It may work for them now but it won't in the long run and then their name is discredited when someone has to go through and fix the crap.

So why not learn to do things right?

[Scorpie]

Since I`ve implemented a MessageBus for event handling etc I dont even care about using Ext.getCmp. Its really nice to create plugins that have their own responsibility for handling events which they subscribe to. Clearer code & less conjunction.

[azuroff]

As someone who has been guilty of this in the past (and still shudders with revulsion when I have to go back and touch old code), I wouldn't call people who do this "idiots"... I think it's simply a case of not knowing any better. It's a quick, one-line statement and it works for the most part.

As far as "learning to do things right" - if it seems to work just fine, how are new developers even supposed to know that using Ext.getCmp() is not doing things right?

[jay@moduscreate.com]

As someone who has been guilty of this in the past (and still shudders with revulsion when I have to go back and touch old code), I wouldn't call people who do this "idiots"... I think it's simply a case of not knowing any better. It's a quick, one-line statement and it works for the most part.

As far as "learning to do things right" - if it seems to work just fine, how are new developers even supposed to know that using Ext.getCmp() is not doing things right?

I agree. The goal of this post is to understand what the senior community members can do to help prevent this in the future 4.0 user base.

I am hoping to outline some of the Ext JS 4.0 examples soon and present them to the Ext JS team. My goal is to eliminate the use of Ext.getCmp all together, if possible.

Any ideas/input would be greatly appreciated.

[jay@moduscreate.com]

azuroff, where and how did you learn not to use Ext.getCmp?

[mitchellsimoens]

My goal is to eliminate the use of Ext.getCmp all together, if possible.

Is this the best idea though? Is there a way to render it useless when extending?

[jay@moduscreate.com]

Is this the best idea though? Is there a way to render it useless when extending?

Sure there is. use the "ref" option (i'm not a fan of that), or use the container model methods in conjunction with itemId.


I smell a screen cast brewing..

[mitchellsimoens]

Sure there is. use the "ref" option (i'm not a fan of that), or use the container model methods in conjunction with itemId.


I smell a screen cast brewing..

I understand but I think it has it's uses in normal coding but that just may be because of laziness. Maybe it is a good idea to force people to use good practices?

I just wouldn't like to lose people because of something like this.

[Animal]

Could be a preprocessor for Javascript might work.

Parse the JS, extract all itemId configs.

Wrap the JS with

(function() {
    var <itemId1>,<itemId2>.......;

    <The original JS with initComponent method injected into the configs which contains the line
        <itemIdVarName> = this;
    </TheOriginalJS>
})();

Similar to what I use, except that all my "pages" (loaded Components) are generated. I generate code which declares a var for every Component in that "page" who's name is the Component's itemId.