...but it feels pretty good.
This file exists purely so that I can write code like this:
AnimationBuilder.on(entity)
..animate('foo1', 1000)
..animate('foo2', 1000);
Instead of:
new AnimationBuilder(entity)
..animate('foo1', 1000)
..animate('foo2', 1000)
Or, without the 'DSL wrapper' entirely:
var ani = new Animation();
ani.animationSteps.add(new AnimationStep('foo1', 1000));
ani.animationSteps.add(new AnimationStep('foo2', 1000));
If I could have actually have a function called 'AnimationBuilder' that would call "new AnimationBuilder" under the hood, that would have been even better. The Nokogiri gem for Ruby does this: there's a class called Nokogiri and a function called Nokogiri. The function calls the class, so you can write code like "Nokogiri(xml_content).foo.bar" and just Get It Done.
I am kind of a stickler for these aesthetics issues. I want my code to look good, because it's 2014 and programming is still text-based and I have to be the one staring at the result for 8 hours a day. It doesn't matter that there is literally no savings in terms of characters: the code reads more naturally with the 'DSL' so that's what I went with. That third block of code is simply not an option, but I included it anyway because I actually wrote it once before I recoiled and said "nope" and introduced AnimationBuilder.
I'm probably dragging some of my Rubyisms into Dart, but I figure I'm an odd duck out anyway (everyone seems to be coming to Dart from C# or Java), so whatever.
Gotta have fun, or why code at all?
