Re: Holub on getters/setters again

From: Daniel Parker (danielaparker_at_spam?nothanks.windupbird.com)
Date: 01/23/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:46:14 -0500

"Daniel T." <postmaster@eathlink.net> wrote in message
news:postmaster-D4ECDB.22313422012004@news03.east.earthlink.net...
> brangdon@cix.co.uk (Dave Harris) wrote:
>
> > danielaparker@hotmail.com (Daniel Parker) wrote (abridged):
> > > Now, I submit that nearly everybody on this newsgroup
> > > would have an answer to the question, "Is this method a getter?"
> > > Nearly everybody, but not Ron. Ron would say, "No, we can't tell, we
> > > have to look at the source first."
> >
> > :-) I can make the situation worse by adding history into the mix. If we
> > start by defining the class interface and then later decide which
> > accessors are backed directly by instance variables, that's good. If
> > instead we start by implementing the class with its variables, and then
> > add accessors for every instance variable without considering whether
any
> > client needs them, that's bad.
>
> I'm not so sure that the latter approach is "bad". I mean one ends up
> doing work that may not be used, and that is bad, but in the case of a
> class that will be published to the whole world, it behoves the designer
> of the class to provide to clients as much information about the
> object's state as possible. One never knows, in these situations what
> the client might need.
>
I think I'm with Dave Harris on this one, my instincts would be to expose as
little as possible until there was a demonstrated need from the client. I
would also be extremely reluctant to add setters unless they fitted in
naturally to the overall design of the class, e.g. Holub's Exporter classes,
or a factory class. The more you expose and commit to supporting, the less
opportunity you will have for changing the implementation in the future.

Regards,
Daniel Parker

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Informix beats Oracle
    ... Daniel seems to want to change the issue. ... I'm a consultant and when I pick or choose a client, I'm forced to work within their limited constraints. ... >> My experience is with Oracle 9. ... necessarily privileges over the tables, a third user cannot execute the ...
    (comp.databases.informix)
  • Re: Kein Zugriff auf Lizenzserver
    ... Habe die Registry entsprechend angepasst. ... Anschliessend habe ich mich am TS - von diesem Client ... Gruss Daniel ...
    (microsoft.public.de.german.windows.terminaldienste)
  • Re: Com+ remote calls
    ... What Daniel says is true, however you can go into the Component Services ... "stub" or proxy DLL's setup and ready to connect to your server. ... need to do is reference these DLL's on the client. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.distributed_apps)