Magento and Getters

From the Magento core code (in class Magento_Core_Model_App):

    /**
     * Retrieve request object
     *
     * @return Mage_Core_Controller_Request_Http
     */
    public function getRequest()
    {
        if (empty($this->_request)) {
            $this->_request = new Mage_Core_Controller_Request_Http();
        }
        return $this->_request;
    }

Folks... puleaze!!!?

I just wasted about an hour on finding out where $this->_request was initialized. I debugged over $this->getRequest() about a gazillion times. This is just not the way to write code, for crying out loud! The phpdoc block actually states this, right up there: Retrieve request object. Retrieve!!!!!!!!1112. It doesn't say anything about initializing it.

I mean, yeah, by now I should probably be able to anticipate stuff like that, seeing as some of the magento standard models' load() methods have an optional parameter $create that defaults to... you guessed it! True!!

Some. Not all. That would be too consistent (even if it's decidedly wrong).

Duh.

realX

I know that this is not a very unique idea, but it's such a common mistake one cannot be reminded of it often enough.

Only recently, I stumbled upon a code fragment that performed something akin to sudo on a webshop. It took a customer_id from the request, checked the logged-in customer's permissions, and then it went about and set a

realCustomer

to the customer from the session... or it set the customer from the request to the realCustomer, while the session customer remained untouched.... or...

See what I'm aiming at?

If you're ever tempted to use something like "real" to distinguish between two objects, please take the time and think about what that object actually represents. The adminCustomer, maybe, the loggedInCustomer, or the effectiveCustomer. But never the realCustomer.

thesaurus.com is a valuable, and deeply underappreciated, resource for coders.