IronShay

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It's a difficult one to judge without seeing the code. That aside, my first reaction would be that the naming of the method may require consideration. Certainly if the method is hidden away, a developer maintaining the code may misjudge calls to GetMMM, assuming it is a read-only operation. Also, unless MMM is an industry acronym, this may need consideration too.

Again, I can't see the code but it is possible that the method may do too much and may need refactoring further than simply providing a more suitable name.

For a short-term fix, I see nothing wrong with your boss' point of view. In six months when the code needs maintaining, (s)he may think otherwise.

"because it would prevent future bugs"

Why does you boss think that? Does it make sense to you? (Not from a coding standard point of view, but from a maintenance point of view.

If the method has surprising side effects that itself could be a reason for future bugs.

Hi Shay,

A piece of code that prevents bugs and breaks all coding standards while doing so can be in the long run a point of failure in your system. If this piece of code is an atomic operation (like get operation) it shouldn't have any side effects like adding stuff. About the first question, sometimes we need nonrational coding approach to solve problems. So the answer is not always.

GetMMM vs GetCustomFields. Much better, I now know what it does... Except, it writes data too so maybe I don't.

<grin>