DIY or Do it yourself.

I started paying attention to the DIY concept after seeing the following method that waits until a page is loaded in the browser:

public void waitForPageToLoad(String string){
  String url = browserDriver.getCurrentUrl();
  Boolean stringExists = url.contains(string);
  int Count = 0;
 
  while (Boolean.FALSE.equals(stringExists) && Count < 100){
     url = browserDriver.getCurrentUrl();
     stringExists = url.contains(string);
     Count = Count + 1;
     try {
        Thread.sleep(500);
     } catch (InterruptedException e) {
         // TODO Auto-generated catch block
         e.printStackTrace();
     }
  }
 
   //if(stringExists==false)
   if(Boolean.FALSE.equals(stringExists))
      throw new IllegalStateException(
        “Page not loaded. Current page” + “is: “
         + browserDriver.getCurrentUrl()); 
   }
}

 

The  method seems useful at first sight. But reading the code with more attention, one realizes that it is just a bad implementation of concepts that already exist in the Selenium WebDriver library: WebDriverWait and ExpectedConditions.

 

The same result is provided by 2 lines of code:

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 30);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.urlContains(keyword));

 

 

 

When writing code, this is one of the things that are always so tempting.

1. You need to convert an array into a list so you put together a method that does it.
2. You need a  way to wait until a page is loaded so you write quickly some code for it.
3. You need random strings and numbers in your project so you create your class that generates them.

 

After doing it yourself, the result is always the same. You are satisfied about being capable of completing the task. You are capable of writing code that is useful in your project. You can show it to a colleague with pride.

 

But then, you discuss your new classes with someone a bit more senior.

 

Who listens to you carefully and then replies with 3 words:

Don’t do it yourself!

(There are actually 4 words here, hmmm, my counting is not what it used to be.)

 

What did you say? What do you mean by “don’t do it yourself”? What is wrong with my code? It works very well. It has no bugs. It is well designed.

 

That’s what you think now. It may be working for now but will it continue to do so in the future for all your other needs?

Are you sure that it will be easy to extend and maintain?

And actually, why are you doing it? Don’t you have other more important code to write?

 

Yes, I have more code to write. But what about all these things? Generating a random number and string, for example?

 

 

Before starting to write any common-purpose code, check if anyone else did it before you. Chances are very high that there is already a library out there that does what you need and much more. This library was created to work in a variety of situations. It is well designed and probably extensible. It is well documented and well tested.

 

 

Let’s take generating a random string and number.

Your code may look like this:

String text = "";
char[] symbols = new char[] {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h'};

int size = 20;

for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
Random random = new Random();
int randomIndex = random.nextInt(symbols.length);
text = text + symbols[randomIndex];
}

System.out.println(text);

 

Easy enough, isn’t it?

 

Yes, but very limited too.

 

How about using instead the RandomStringGenerator class from the commons apache library?

Look how easy it is to

• generate random string values from letters only
• generate random string values from digits only
• generate random string values from letters and digits and with variable length

char[] letters = new char[] {'a', 'z'};
char[] numbers = new char[] {'0', '9'};

RandomStringGenerator generator;

generator = new RandomStringGenerator
.Builder().withinRange(letters).build();

System.out.println(generator.generate(20));

generator = new RandomStringGenerator
.Builder().withinRange(numbers).build();

System.out.println(generator.generate(20));

generator = new RandomStringGenerator
.Builder().withinRange(letters, numbers).build();

for (int i = 1; i <=10; i++)
System.out.println(generator.generate(10, 20));

 

In conclusion …

 

There is no need to re-invent the wheel.

Unless you have so many ideas and intuitions that your new wheel is compared to the old one what the first iphone was compared to a blackberry.

 

Otherwise, spend your time to write code that implements a good problem for the company you work for.

And, every time you can, don’t do it yourself.

Use third party libraries instead such as apache commons.