I spent a somewhat frustrating hour at work today trying to plot a straight line on a chart using a framework that shall remain nameless. I quickly had the slope and the y-intercept worked out and all I needed were two x values to plug into the equation to calculate some points. I already had another series plotted on the same chart and just picking the minimum and maximum x values from it was sufficient for my causes.

Naturally, I could do the legwork of figuring the min and max myself, but why do the work when the framework can do it for you? I poked around and found a couple useful methods: FindMinValue() and FindMaxValue(). I had assumed (based on Intellisense and lack of code docs) that they would return the values I needed. Then a couple things taught me that wasn’t so at all:
1. I used var to declare my variables, so I didn’t notice that the functions in question are returning integers.
2. I was wrong in my original assumption. Those methods aren’t finding and returning the min and max values. Instead, they’re returning indices into the array of points in the series, pointing me to the location of the min and max values.

I guess technically the method names didn’t lie: they are “finding” the location of the values for me. I still found that to be counterintuitive. In my opinion, FindMinValueIndex() would’ve been better.

So, the lesson is: pay attention, don’t assume anything, and if you ever release an API framework, try to be as clear as possible about the intent of your methods when you name them.