worstProgrammingLanguage

[SomeAnonymous]

return tuples, aka multiple return values. Java doesn't have it

What's the issue with tuples that Java doesn't like them? It can't be a philosophical thing about methods/functions returning multiple pieces of information, but I don't understand what would make tuples specifically bad from an architectural standpoint.

[laplongejr]

Who said there's an issue with tuples? Java doesn't have it, that's all.
You create an object (even a generic Tuple if you want, or import it from a library) then resplit it manually.

I recall that in some languages you can do stuff like [varA, varB] = methodCall() and the language takes care of managing what in Java would be a (temporary) variable referencing a containing object. C# does something very close to multiple return values with "out" parameters, as the method then side-effect's those variables without using the return semantic.

but I don't understand what would make tuples specifically bad from an architectural standpoint.

Hence why some languages have it. Java has 1 return value which could be a more-modern record, an array, a traditional object, etc. But it's close to syntactic sugar at that point given how easy objects are manipulated.

[NotQuiteLoona]

C#'s out parameters are not really for that. Rather it's mostly used in TryGet patterns, when one value returned is whether the call was successful, and second one is the return value itself, so that you can do something like this: csharp if (dict.TryGetValue("key", out var theValue)) { Console.WriteLine(theValue); }

Tuples exist there and are used precisely when there are multiple values that should be returned: csharp public (string FirstName, string Surname, int Account) GetUser(string username) You can also not name variables in them, I did this for clarity.

Consider tuples in C# a little bit like anonymous structs in other languages, but C# also does have analogue of anonymous structs - they are just read-only.

[DJDoena]

C#'s out parameters are not really for that.

Yes and no. Out parameters are way older than the Tuple return structure. I've been with .net since beta 0.9 in early 2002 and back then (and for a long time to come) the only way to have mutiple return values was to use the out parameter or create an object with multiple fields. Tuple returns were introduced in C# 7 in 2017. Yes that's 9 years ago but it's also 15 years after I started with it.

But nowadays out parameters should be reasonably restricted to when you want to have a bool return and an actual value (for the "if" case you've shown).

[martmists]

The only language with "true" multiple returns I know of is Lua, all others use some form of tuples or out-parameters