This post is a response (comment, really) to Tim Riley's 2017 presentation on functional architecture, specifically, how to write truly stateless and functional services.

The bad example from him

This approach allows re-using the service object.

I believe the ability to do so is a negative, but even if you disagree, I will show how the reuse comes at too high a cost:

The API becomes dispersed, some stuff in init, some in call. Where do I put a new parameter?
Memoisation becomes impossible.
Extract-method refactoring becomes cumbersome to impracticality because we have to pass everything as arguments.

def call(feed)
  # something very long
end

private

def split_out_of_call(feed)
end

def other_split(download_feed, some_loop_arg)
end

The alternative

Let's lean into the functional aspect of a service, and disallow instantiation! This will remove the ability to reuse (an actual win in my book, YMMW), and allow us to use private instances as full black boxes:

class ImportProducts
  def self.call(...)
    new(...).call
  end

  # This is key. *Everything* about the instance is private.
  private  

  attr_reader :download_feed, :products_repo, :feed:

  # yes, even the initializer is private 
  def initialize(download_feed:, products_repo:, feed:)
    @download_feed = download_feed
    @products_repo = products_repo
    @feed = feed
  end

  # no params for #call
  def call
    # ...
  end

  def split_out_of_call
    # #feed implicitly available
  end

  def other_split(some_loop_arg)
    # #download_feed implicitly available
  end 
end

And now in action

ImportProducts.(
  download_feed: download,
  products_repo: repo,
  feed: books_feed
)

This way there is never an instance which might get some @errors populated to be accessed later. Everything needs to be in the #call return value, often a hash, but ideally a Struct.

Use stateless services

The bad example from him

The alternative