Refactoring: Parameter Objects

There are times when I'm building out a constructor or function and I find that I've ended up with a large number of parameters. Technically, there's nothing wrong with a lot of parameters. Your code will likely still work fine. But readability is sacrificed. And it's likely that some coupling is happening, too. I keep an eye out for this smell because it sometimes means I can replace some of these parameters with a parameter object.

Let's take an ssh connection for example. You might have some code that looks like this:

func NewClient(protocol, host, user, pass, port, path string) *ssh.Client {
    // stuff...
    return client
}

This code is fine and would absolutely work but it could be better with a parameter object.

// Params is a parameter object
type Params struct {
    protocol,
    host,
    user,
    pass,
    port,
    path string
}

func NewClient(params Params) *ssh.Client {
    // stuff...
    return client
}

This is a pretty easy process and the value added isn't only in the shorter parameter list. The new Params type could also enable an abstraction of existing code that increases maintainability and readability.