The Fallacy of Small Functions

Decades of computer programming advice, best practices, and books have taught that small functions are good. That’s misleading at best and counterproductive at worst: increasing complexity rather than reducing it.

For brevity, I’m going to say things are false or wrong without explaining because you already have a fantastic explanation: A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout. Everything I’m arguing here is explained in that book.

Here’s an example of bad design:

func serviceName(cluster rds.DBCluster) string {
	ret := serviceNameFromTag(cluster.TagList)
	if ret != "" {
		return ret
	}
 
	return serviceNameFromID(cluster.DBClusterIdentifier)
}
 
func serviceNameFromTag(tags []*rds.Tag) string {
	for _, tag := range tags {
		if strings.ToLower(tag.Key) == "service" {
			return tag.Value
		}
	}
 
	return ""
}
 
func serviceNameFromID(clusterID string) string {
	lastDash := strings.LastIndex(clusterID, "-")
	if lastDash == -1 {
		return clusterID
	}
 
	if lastDash < len(clusterID)-1 {
		suffix := clusterID[lastDash+1:]
		if _, err := strconv.Atoi(suffix); err != nil {
			return clusterID
		}
	}
 
	return clusterID[0:lastDash]
}

Example 1: Three small functions (bad design)

The main philosophical (and practical) problem with the three functions in example 1 is that they’re all shallow: they don’t do much. But let’s put philosophy aside for the moment and critique more practical points.

Some engineers will argue that the code above in example 1 is well designed because each function is small and does one thing. They might even cite the “S” in SOLID: single responsibility. But they’re wrong: small functions are not inherently good software design.

What about “do one thing”? serviceName doesn’t: it starts by calling the second function, serviceNameFromTag. And if that returns an empty string, it calls the third function serviceNameFromID. So serviceName itself does nothing: it just calls other functions. That raises the question: what does serviceName itself do? what is its responsibly? Calling other functions isn’t a responsibility, it’s just… a program. All programs are functions calling functions.

Another problem with relying on the fallacy that small functions are good design is that it often leads programmers to not write code comments. They argue that “If the functions are small and do one thing, they’re self-describing—no code comments necessary!” They’re wrong again: code is what we want the computer to do but it does not explain why.

Furthermore, the programmer who wrote these functions failed to realize that the direction of thought in writing the code cannot be followed by other programmers reading the code. The writer starts with a singular problem: p = “I need to get the service name from the databases cluster name.” They arrive at a three-part solution: q, r, s.

Problem is: the writer assumes that readers can from start from the solution and arrive back at the original problem. Readers cannot. For example, a reader cannot tell in example 1 if the other two functions serve a purpose other than being called by the first. Is it valid / acceptable / intended that the program calls serviceNameFromTag or serviceNameFromID directly? Nobody knows; even the original author will eventually forget.

Here’s the same code but written with better design as a single function:

// serviceName returns the service name of the given cluster so we can look up
// the service from the database cluster name. The db cluster should be tagged
// with the service name (service=name). If not, it's parsed from the database
// cluster name by dropping the "-nnn" cluster number suffix. It always returns
// a non-empty value (because a database cluster name can't be empty).
func serviceName(cluster rds.DBCluster) string {
	// Return name from service tag
	for _, tag := range cluster.TagList {
		if strings.ToLower(tag.Key) == "service" {
			return tag.Value
		}
	}
 
	// No tag; parse service name from cluster ID. This happens becuase there
    // are some legacy databases that aren't tagged. In the future, we should
    // probably make this an error to force us to finish tagging evertything.
    //
    // Db cluster name should be like "foo-001". So we find the last "-" and
    // return everything before that. But legacy databases might not conform,
    // so we handle stuff like "foo" and "foo-v2".
	clusterID := cluster.DBClusterIdentifier 
	lastDash := strings.LastIndex(clusterID, "-")
	if lastDash == -1 {
		return clusterID
	}
	if lastDash < len(clusterID)-1 {
		suffix := clusterID[lastDash+1:]
		if _, err := strconv.Atoi(suffix); err != nil {
			return clusterID
		}
	}
 
	return clusterID[0:lastDash]
}

Example 2: One function, deep abstraction (good design)

Example 2 is better design because function serviceName is deep and correctly code commented. Instead of grokking 3 small but uncommented functions, readers now have a single function that explains both what and why in the comments. For example, the previous code (example 1) doesn’t mention the special case: legacy clusters that don’t have standard tags or follow the naming schema.

Deep doesn’t mean big; it means the implementation does more relative to its interface. The interface here is the function signature, which is about as small and simple as it gets: one input arg, one return value. The implementation of that small, simple interface is deep because it handles (and hides) several cases: the normal case (tag) and special. The function does a lot, relatively speaking (it’s a pretty simple example).

It’s deep but not complex because readers can understand the problem alongside its implementation.

Now that readers know what the code is supposed to do (and why), they can more easily question how (implementation) and more safely modify it (presuming it already has good test coverage). For example, why use strings.LastIndex rather than a regex to truncate the “-nnn”? Then you don’t have to check for it; just truncate and return.

Small functions are not inherently good software design. They’re not inherently bad, either. And since big functions are usually problematic, we concluded that function size is not a good guide to better software design.

When you read A Philosophy of Software Design you’ll learn a better and much more effective guide: reducing (or eliminating) complexity with deep abstractions—and appropriately written code comments.