Closing of questions citing "off-topic" as reason where user-defined code and standardized code is clearly equivalent

Question

See From the below javascript code snippet which one is considered to be most appropriate? [on hold]

Scenario 1:

try {
  elements.personWrapper.getElement('span[name=personClass]').set('innerHTML',''); 
} catch(TypeError) {
  elements.personWrapper.getElement('input[name=personClass]').set('innerHTML', '');
}

Scenario 2:

var span_element = elements.personWrapper.getElement('span[name=personClass]');
var input_element = elements.personWrapper.getElement('input[name=personClass]');
if (span_element) {
  span_element.set('innerHTML', '');
} else if (input_element) {
  input_element.set('value', '');
}

Further, OP specifically stated to ignore the fact that the code is user defined

Above code snippet achieve the same goal (Please do not consider the readability or naming conventions, its been edited). So, I would like to know which one is better. Anyone please provide your valuable suggestions.

Please note that either of the one get's set while the page get loaded. The span and input elements are created dynamically. So, the goal is to set the innerHTML if it's a span or set the value if it's an input type element.

I want to know which code snippet is more efficient in terms of code execution and less error prone, Thanks!

The code is obviously relating to an HTML document and can be trivially substituted for document.querySelector(), .innerHTML and .value without in any way affecting the original intent of the OP or the resulting code execution.

An edit was suggested which substituted stadard DOM methods for the user-defined methods and removed reference to ignore the user-defined methods, which was rejected for the reason that the edit changed the original intent of the question; though am unable to determine how the edited code affects the original question whatsoever.

The question should not have been closed in the first place. The original question is clearly on-topic for Code Review SE, even with the user-defined code at the original question. Kindly re-open the question.

Answer 1

Let me quote the question piecewise and explain why it's off topic with the relevant sections of the help center

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(Please do not consider the readability or naming conventions, its been edited)

This implies that the code presented is not the code that the user is actually working on. They ask us to ignore readability and naming conventions. This is already a big warning sign, because it goes against the following rule in the help center:

Details matter! In order to give good advice, we need to see real, concrete code, and understand the context in which the code is used.

This code is not real, concrete code, the question does little to nothing to establish any context in which the code is used.

---

Above code snippet achieve the same goal

snippet implies the code is stripped of any context that would also be relevant for a review. For all we know, the user has 250 of these "snippets" copy-pasted and adjusted manually. This again goes against the rule requiring the real, concrete code.

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So, I would like to know which one is better.

This is asking us to compare two snippets that "achieve the same goal", and state which of them is "better". It doesn't define any useful metric by which we could assess the "goodness" of a given snippet. While this is not strictly off-topic (the help-center explicitly allows disregarding the focus that OP asks for in a question), it doesn't bode well either.

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I want to know which code snippet is more efficient in terms of code execution and less error prone.

Again: snippet. The code has been ripped from it's context. In the question itself OP states that the elements the code iterates over have been dynamically generated. Why OP needs to now amend them is not made clear in any way. No context is given on how the elements are generated or how the snippet given is invoked.

In short: this question gives too little context to provide a comprehensive code review.

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Note that I'm not saying the question isn't answerable. It may well be answerable, but it's not a question that this community wants to answer. That's the whole idea of defining scopes for sites on Stack Exchange.

In conclusion: The question you present here is clearly off-topic. It violates the rule that code without context and snippets are disallowed.

Answer 2

I see that you are saying that "the context is apparent by the code itself." and "There is no difference from the original code and the edit to the code submitted". Let me reply to these things and possibly some others of your concerns.

First, let's talk about the answerability of this question. Is the question answerable? Well, sure, you posted an answer to it. And I agree with this answer, considering the question it's a very good answer. But your answer basically explained what the difference was between the two scenarios. The first one can fail if the input element does not exist, and the first one doesn't even attempt to change the value, only the innerHTML. So you basically pointed out what the differences was in what the code does.

For me, the original question poses more questions to me than answers. On Stack Overflow I saw the OP wrote:

please note that there is no flag values (IF block conditional checking parameter) that can be used to determine whether the dynamically created element is of span or input type. That is why the first code snippet used a try-catch block and the 2nd code snippet introduced both element, assuming that any of these will hold an object other than null at run-time

And my question to this is: Why isn't there a flag for this? How are these dynamically elements created? How are they stored? Can't you use different lists for span and input elements? Why are they stored? What are the elements used for? How can I be sure that these objects always exists? My goal as a reviewer is not to just answer the question, my goal is to give the best possible advice. I can't do that because I have so many questions about how this code is used. This is what other people mean by "lack of context". So the best possible answer we can give at the moment is what you wrote in your answer. But we want to give better advice than that. We want to help out more than that. But we can't, without the answer to the questions I posed here. And you can't answer these questions just by reading the code that is in the question.

---

About your edit, I understand that you mean well, and as others have said the things you edited were not at all a problem with the question. The things you edited did not help in answering the questions I posed above. No one except the OP can answer the questions I posed above.

Editing the code in a question should only be done by the OP on Code Review Stack Exchange. There are a few reasons for this, for example:

• The code in the question is the code that is being reviewed, it's the OP that is asking for a review, not you. We want to review the OP's code, if you want your code reviewed then please post a question yourself.
• Only the OP of a question knows the natural habitat of the code and can answer questions about it. What if a question pops up about "Why did you do this?", if you had edited the code then the OP's only response would be "Umm, well, I didn't. Someone else did. I don't know".

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So in conclusion, this question gives me more questions than what I can give answers, and therefore I also consider that it lacks context in order to be answered properly. As said, I would like to be able to give an even better answer than what you have already given.

Answer 3

A statement assuring us that the missing context is irrelevent is not the same thing as having the full context and doesn't mean we don't need it.

Furthermore the statement implies that the code has been altered (presumably to be more generic, but I don't know because I don't have the full context.) This makes it example code which is also off-topic.

Lastly, the question explicitly asks for a choice between two options and asks us to ignore other aspects of a Code Review. This is a best practices question and belongs on a different Exchange. Not an "any and all aspects" review request.

Answer 4

"Further, OP specifically stated to ignore the fact that the code is user defined"

OP asking us to ignore anything is something we simply don't allow.

From the help center:

Is it actual code from a project rather than pseudo-code or hypothetical code?

The code in question, is not.

Do I want feedback about any or all facets of the code?

You can ask for focus points, but you can't exclude things from review. The moment you upload your (real) code, it's fair game for the reviewers.