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It hurts my eyes to see such conservatism in developers. Do you seriously avoid DataAnnotations, WebServices, WCF Contracts, ASP.NET MVC post/get descriptors etc?
Attributes are great for many reasons:
1)They are declarative. They abstract the actual painful order of details, they just do what you tell them to do
2) They are where they should be. Decorating your method, property or whatever, not in some hidden config file you easily forget to update. You don't want them there for some important reason? There are workarounds (see entity framework and Metadata classes which add data annotations).
3) They combine well with OO programming (abstraction, data together with their behaviour etc etc)
4) You can do sexy things with them with reflection
5) Their most common uses are dead-simple to understand (a junior developer who cannot understand in 10 minutes what [Post] or [Required] can do in the appropriate context, just shouldn't be a developer).
6) In most cases they are the most brief way to express something
7) It's one of those features Java was so eager to copy, for a reason.
8) You cannot seriously compare attributes with lambdas in their complexity. (even though I love lambdas as well).
9) Of course they can be abused, but even "if" can be abused (I've seen horrible series of if statements that could have been replaced by a more maintenable and faster to execute switch).
modified 6-Apr-21 21:01pm.
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WCF can be listed solidly under "when it's required".
tecgoblin wrote: 4) You can do sexy things with them with reflection
WTF do I want code to be sexy for? I just want it to work and be maintainable. When I'm writing code, I'm usually not thinking about "sexy". Reflection is handy, but I avoid it whenever possible.
tecgoblin wrote: 7) It's one of those features Java was so eager to copy, for a reason.
Well, there's a valid reason to use attributes - because they wanted to do it in Java... That's like saying goto is a viable statement.
tecgoblin wrote: (even though I love lambdas as well).
Wow. Color me surprised.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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Like so many things - there is a time and a place. People who use attributes wisely can achieve good outcomes with clean and simple code. The key is to know what REALLY happens behind the scenes when you add attributes. If you don't know this then don't use the attribute. For example, the LINQ object-to-database mapping can be a very useful tool but used incorrectly it generates disasterously slow code behind the scenes.
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Our intern told me that I'm old school and that we don't have to worry about memory or the CPU nowadays. We just have plenty of both 
But he already started to change his mind. He started to write an app on his telephone and 'only' has a 1 GHz ARM processor and 64kk memory. Extremely limited 
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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I don't know who 1-voted your post, but I don't think it was necessary and compensated with a 5.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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Cheers!
modified 6-Apr-21 21:01pm.
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Amen to that. Attributes are GREAT for cross-cutting concerns. One of the most useful applications of attributes I've seen is in ASP.NET MVC. Simply decorating your controller methods with an [Authorize] attribute ensures security for the view. It makes it nice and easy to see which controller methods are secure and which ones are not by simply glancing at the code. Much nicer and more maintainable than an inheritance/opt-in/opt-out OO mess.
Like anything, attributes can be abused, but they definitely have utility in creating readable/maintainable code in cross-cutting circumstances.
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I agree with you completely, got my 5. I posted an example where custome attributes can be very useful:
It's awesome when you figure its power
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I only use attributes in very rare instances - when they're required, and for nothing more.
How about when they make your life easier? You'd be surprised on how well they can do that. The fact the something isn't needed doesn't mean you shouldn't use. If one would follow that line, we don't need visual studio, but do we want to code in a text editor and command line?
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I try to avoid using reflection whenever possible as well.
This may be a valid point not to use Attributes, but then, you gotta verify the advantages and disadvantages of using them. Two disadvantages:
1 - Performance. But is performance a real issue? I believe in most cases they aren't specially on the web where the bottleneck is somewhere else.
2 - Type safety. Ok, but IMO, the productivity gain in most cases outweighs the risks.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Indeed, the way the propertygrid uses them greatly limits its extensibility.
I think Resharper uses both in the code (defaults) and out of the code (custom settings) attributes for its static analysis engine. Maybe what you describe is somehow exposed in .NET?
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Stonkie wrote: Indeed, the way the propertygrid uses them greatly limits its extensibility.
There's a couple snazzy articles here on CP regarding extending the property grid. I first took control of the property grid in conjunction with a custom form designer so that I could restrict the properties that were exposed. Then I realized, I could do the opposite--expose domain-specific properties that I don't want polluting the agnostic framework. The implementation I decided on uses an external file that associates new properties based on type, and an interface that must be supported for extensible types as a compromise to making my life easier with serialization. So, what I've got now is pretty cool.
Marc
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I beg to differ, please read my post:
"It's awesome when you figure its power"
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Agreed, and attributes may not even be needed for XML serialisation.
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With the amount of participants this poll can give some nice pointers on what and how technology is used.
Now, what decisive role do Attributes have to deserve this poll?
At the end of this week, what can we take from whatever result this may end up with?
I can foresee a "None!" response here 
Sorry guys, I like to contribute but this one felt too useless.
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...just thought I'd raise subject before Nagy! 
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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Damned you and your sheep fetish!
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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Jealous?
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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Nope. I still have half a gallon of gin, so I should be able to manage until 5pm
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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Griff !
The poll next month should be:
Codeproject buzz words and phrases you have used for obtaining an automatic 5:
[ ] Bacon
[ ] Liquid Nitrogen
[ ] CListCtrl
[ ] Why ProductX sucks today
[ ] Other
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
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[] Hamsters
[] Mankini
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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Actually I started creating some Attributes[^] this weekend. Was not really familiar with them, except that I knew how to use them.
Creating them is actually pretty fun and gives some insight into how .NET does stuff under the covers.
If you're a .NET developer and not yet familiar with Attributes I can really recommend creating and reading over your custom Attributes[^]. Just for fun and knowledge 
It's an OO world.
public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}
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Just don't get carried away and use them too much. Reflection is not among the fastest things. The good old assembly and C++ days have made me a scrooge what memory and CPU are concerned
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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The environment in which I use it can easily take a few milliseconds longer to do stuff. It's good knowing when not to use certain things and I am sure Reflection and Attributes are two of them. But I also like to know why not to use them. And how would you know better than by knowing how it works?
It's an OO world.
public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}
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To begin with, I don't like the cargo cult programming and mindlessly following rules without even knowing why. Things which are harmful for one purpose may be useful for another. That's why I break every rule in the book when it helps me. The problem is, that teaching this is much harder than simply preaching rules. The last thing I would tell you is not to try to understand what is going on.
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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Well, I know someone who is just like that. And he's forcing his ways upon others... If he reads in a book somewhere "don't use attributes" he wouldn't dare touch them if his life depended on it. If he reads "attributes can be really handy" he'd look for at least one attribute he could use on his Classes, Properties etc. as much as possible.
To make things worse, he doesn't want to know about stuff he thinks he'll never need.
I certainly don't want to be like that. So if it takes me to apply 100 attributes in a single Class to find out it's not all that great, then so be it 
Of course some books and lots of CP articles can sometimes prevent me from reinventing the wheel
It's an OO world.
public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}
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