RE: Tables, Wrappers and MLs, oh my!

Brad Stone asked:

>When I see all this, I have to ask, is it
>really worth it?  Why not do some
>OO and some procedural programming?

>Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
>(I know Joe P's out for the
>week).

Yes, there does come a point where you have to cry a halt to the O-O
methodology and code actual methods.  At that point, the methods themselves
are largely if not exclusively procedural code.  It eventually becomes
important for performance as well; a program can't just be a long layer of
polymorphic calls -- someone has to do the work.

Still, the proper O-O decomposition can take a while, especially the first
time or two.  This is the part that can't really be rushed -- unless you
want to write code that you later wish you hadn't (which is to some extent
inevitable anyway while learning this stuff).

Sometimes, too, an actual implementation will reveal subtleties and object
relationships that endless blackboard designs don't.  A little cut and try
(if one is willing to act upon discoveries) isn't a bad thing.

What probably isn't as apparent is that once you get the right
decomposition, the actual code can be very easy to write.  It can reduce
the complexity enough to pay for the delay in commencing coding, though
probably not on the first project.

Also, I think it likely this example is a little too abstract.  A real
problem would have additional constraints that would probably reduce the
choices -- and the arguments.  I have thought about proposing a little more
robust version of this problem for that reason, but unfortunately, I don't
have the time and if I was wrong, oh, the posts I would generate!


Larry W. Loen  -   Senior Java and AS/400 Performance Analyst
                          Dept HP4, Rochester MN


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