should Authentication process be split into two processes?

[mattjbrent]

Just reviewing the work I committed for the authentication feature. The process is split up into two indirect and direct. with correlating log in direct and indirect features.

Now im looking at it im wondering if this should be split up into two separate processes rather than just one, despite their obvious similarities, they are showing two separate paths, even though the end result is the same.

[cellio]

The "direct" path is the user clicking on a "log in or sign up" link somewhere on the page (conventionally in the header, but you'll figure that out). The user is taking an explicit action.

The "indirect" path is the user trying to do something that only logged-in users can do, and thus we interject a login/signup workflow.

I made these different use cases because I didn't know if the design considerations would be different. For example, with the indirect path we need a place to put a "hey, you'll need to be logged in to do that" message. The direct path might offer some "what to do next" guidance that we wouldn't want for the indirect path ("stop interrupting me and just let me answer!" etc).

I suggest keeping them separate even if they'll share 90%. I assume we can do this with reuse and not with cloning stuff.