Question

In order to promote good programming habits and increase the efficiency of my code (Read: “My brother and I are arguing over some code”), I propose this question to experienced programmers:

Which block of code is “better”?
For those who can’t be bothered to read the code, is it worth putting a conditional within a for-loop to decrease the amount of redundant code than to put it outside and make 2 for-loops? Both pieces of code work, the question is efficiency vs. readability.

    - (NSInteger)eliminateGroup {
            NSMutableArray *blocksToKill = [[NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:rowCapacity*rowCapacity] retain];
            NSInteger numOfBlocks = (NSInteger)[self countChargeOfGroup:blocksToKill];
            Block *temp;
            NSInteger chargeTotal = 0;

//Start paying attention here

            if (numOfBlocks > 3) 
                for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < [blocksToKill count]; i++) {
                    temp = (Block *)[blocksToKill objectAtIndex:i];
                    chargeTotal += temp.charge;
                    [temp eliminate];
                    temp.beenCounted = NO;
                }
            }
            else {
                for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < [blocksToKill count]; i++) {
                    temp = (Block *)[blocksToKill objectAtIndex:i];
                    temp.beenCounted = NO;
                }
            }   
            [blocksToKill release];
            return chargeTotal;
        }

Or…

        - (NSInteger)eliminateGroup {
            NSMutableArray *blocksToKill = [[NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:rowCapacity*rowCapacity] retain];
            NSInteger numOfBlocks = (NSInteger)[self countChargeOfGroup:blocksToKill];
            Block *temp;
            NSInteger chargeTotal = 0;

//Start paying attention here

            for (NSUInteger i = 0; i < [blocksToKill count]; i++) {
                temp = (Block *)[blocksToKill objectAtIndex:i];
                if (numOfBlocks > 3) {
                    chargeTotal += temp.charge;
                    [temp eliminate];
                }
                temp.beenCounted = NO;
            }
            [blocksToKill release];
            return chargeTotal;
        }

Keep in mind that this is for a game. The method is called anytime the user double-taps the screen and the for loop normally runs anywhere between 1 and 15 iterations, 64 at maximum. I understand that it really doesn’t matter that much, this is mainly for helping me understand exactly how costly conditional statements are. (Read: I just want to know if I’m right.)

Answer 1

There is no way to answer this without defining your requirements for “better”. Is it runtime efficiency? compiled size? code readability? code maintainability? code portability? code reuseability? algorithmic provability? developer efficiency? (Please leave comments on any popular measurements I’ve missed.)

Sometimes absolute runtime efficiency is all that matters, but not as often as people generally imagine, as you give a nod towards in your question—but this is at least easy to test! Often it’s a mix of all these concerns, and you’ll have to make a subjective judgement in the end.

Every answer here is applying a personal mix of these aspects, and people often get into vigorous Holy Wars because everyone‘s right—in the right circumstance. These approaches are ultimately wrong. The only correct approach is to define what matters to you, and then measure against it.