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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by JokersPistol@programming.dev to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev

Which one is easier to develop and work with (which saves the most time)? Which one would you go for? The name of the API represents its true purpose in this case by the way, createOrUpdate creates or updates the passed in meeting and create just creates the meeting. I will be the only one working on this project for now, although obviously, I would like others to work on it with me eventually.

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[-] fabian@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, it makes the client-side calls a bit simpler if you don't distinguish create and update via POST/PUT, so at the server-side you have a single POST endpoint which does the upsert, but there it would be sensible to dispatch to separate methods for insert and update each.

[-] Joe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I would have 2 functions: createMeeting and updateMeeting

No point having one function do two different things, especially if one of them isn't even hinted at by the function name

[-] macgregor@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Many databases or database clients have an "upsert" operation which is exactly this. Create or update this entity. If the DB supports it you can save an explicit lookup giving minor performance and code cleanliness improvements in application but might shift that performance cost to the DB (had to rollback a prod change not too long ago because someone switched to a PG upsert and it caused average CPU to rise, haven't gotten a chance to investigate why yet, something about indexes probably).

Anyway, I tend to start with just explicit create and update methods and add an "upsert" abstraction if I find myself sprinkling lots of checks around making code messy. So I would go for "createOrUpdateFoo" in that case.

[-] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 0 points 1 year ago

Is there any reason that the caller wouldn't know if the meeting they're holding has been created or not? I'd keep it simple by keeping them separate unless there's a compelling reason to meld them.

[-] moeris@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Well, I can think of two reasons immediately. The first is in hermetic testing environments, where you may have two tests where you'd like to see the same entity. You can't always know the order in which tests execute. That means that either seeding operations should be idempotent, or you'd have to handle setup outside of the individual tests. (Which makes the tests, overall, harder to read.)

Another reason could be for resiliency. You may add a retry mechanism into your code in the frontend, to increase resiliency. If a request returns a 500, you don't know if the entity is created. (The server error could occur in post-processing.) You either have to rely on the creation to be idempotent, or you have to make an additional round-trip. Using a create-or-update mechanism reduces latency and simplifies error-handling code.

this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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