In programming as in all things, never do by indirection(externality) that which

In programming as in all things, never do by indirection(externality) that which you can achieve by direction (construction).

Someone told me last week that he wanted to hide and show content by changing the mathematical dimensions of the panel, rather than simply turning content on and off. It’s sort of like ‘lying’.

This is an example of ‘doing the wrong thing’. It requires the preservation of states not logically connected in an environment where state is always conditional.

Just hide and show stuff. It’s not complicated. Let the engine do its job and you do yours.