Magic String Anti-Pattern

readme.md

C#

Sometimes unavoidable, but always PAINFUL because you ruin your compiled language safety net.

• INotifiyPropertyChanged - Avoidable with LINQ and smart caching for performance.
• CompareAttribute - Unavoidable.
• Any ORM - Unavoidable (unless you use F# 3.0 Type Providers).
• Most reflection.

JavaScript

Basically unavoidable, and unnecessary to avoid since it is an interpreted language.

• Almost all event/pub-sub libraries (event name is string).
• Bracketed property access myObj["myProp"].

csharp.cs

public class Person : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    private void NotifyPropertyChanged(String propertyName)
    {
        if (PropertyChanged != null)
        {
            PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }
    }

    private string _name;
    public string Name
    {
        get { return _name; }
        set
        {
            _name = value;
            NotifyPropertyChanged("Name"); // Shazaam!
        }
    }

    public string Password { get; set; }

    [Compare(OtherProperty = "Password")] // Abracadabra!
    public string PasswordConfirmation { get; set; }
}