APIs In The Real World

Anytime we host guests, its almost guaranteed we’ll get the following question: “Where’s y’all’s recycling?”. We have a dual bin combo recycling/trash can. The recycling side has a blue bag and the trash side is white. For my wife and I, this is enough to maintain our habits without confusion. However, for guests, folks have opened up the bin and asked to confirm “left side is recycling right?”.

interface TrasherAndRecycler {
  fun trash(obj: Any)

  fun recycle(obj: Any)
}

After a few times of that, I decided to print out labels that you can see when you open the lid. Even then people open the lid with their foot and look over at me “which side is recycling?”.

interface TrasherAndRecycler {

  /**
  * Use this for garbage
  */
  fun trash(obj: Any)

  /**
  * Use this for recycling
  */
  fun recycle(obj: Any)
}

I left it at that for years, resigning myself to live in the world of responding “left side of the bin, yep!”.

Last night, we were prepping to host a party and I decided to make the bin just trash, and put white bags in both and labeled both sides as “garbage”. I then put a blue bin next to it, as well as a second blue bag on the deck for recycling. This morning I realized that, not only did I not get asked even once where the recycling is, the blue bags and bins had only recycling in them!

interface Trasher {
  /**
  * Use this for garbage
  */
  fun trash(obj: Any)
}

interface Recycler {
  /**
  * Use this for recycling
  */
  fun recycle(obj: Any)
}

The design of our trash bin obscures the “functionality” of the two containers within it. New guests step on the pedal to open the bin but then don’t notice the blue bag or the labeling and end up having to ask for confirmation.

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Thanks Huyen for the review!