Getting an enum from backend and use it as a string in javascript

Issue

Today I had a rather heathed discussion with a java backend developer. I do the frontend side with jsangular. His rest service sends me an object that includes an enum. I get this as a string and need to show it in an angular grid.

The enums are very self explainable.

Examples what I get: Person = {gender: "MAN", position: "IS_EMPLOYED"}

In the view I have to show the following: man is employed

So i solved it in a simple and generic way: Person.gender.toLowerCase () + ' ' + Person.position.toLowerCase ().replace ('_', ' ')

He found this terrible programming and demanded that I would make a mapper with if else or switch So: If(Person.gender==="MAN") return "man" Else if....

The label name is always the same as the enum name (only lower case and space instead of underscore)

He went on a rampage that it was bad coding and basically terrible and a sin against god...

So my question is this bad/good practice (so a b/w story) or rather acceptable and defendable in some cases?

Typed on my phone so I couldn't put the code examples in the right tags..

Solution

There are a few ways to look at this:

Mapping is more robust: He is right in saying that there should be a complete mapping function. This allows you to handle errors (i.e. if the response you get for position is "banana", you should probably not just throw that out there). This is especially important in backend development when you are probably working with a strict schema.

Scale Matters: There is nothing technically wrong with your approach. If there are a small number of entries or if the user base or application scope is small, it may not matter much. It doesn't really conform to best practices, but it works, and if that is all that matters, it might be enough. Although you should always strive for best practices, you need to keep the big picture in mind.

Efficiency: One approach may be more efficient than the other. The difference may be negligible. In web dev, speed is a priority, and if both approaches get the same result but one is much faster, choose that one.

Answered By - nayrangnu