[CFCDev] Does Your Code Suck?

[Bill Rawlinson]

Not just an empty question - but one that is pretty well explained and answered via essay format at:

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=71730


Now, normally I wouldn't post something like this here but in one of his sections he starts talking about one of our favorite topics lately TOs (or as he refers to them DTOs).

I am not going to post his whole article here (thats what the link above is for) but I thought I would drop this quote:

... the issue of dogmatically using private fields and getters/setters for a simple data structure (e.g. a DTO). If a field is transparently readable and writable why not simply make the field public? In most languages you can do that. Granted, in some you can't. For example, traditionally in Smalltalk all fields are private and all methods are public.

In general it's a good thing whenever you can throw out, or avoid writing, some code. Using a heavy framework generally requires that you must write a significant amount of code that has no business value.

There are a variety of lightweight frameworks for Java that are a response to the heavyweight frameworks (e.g. EJB) that have become matters of dogma lately. O'Reilly has a new book out on this topic, coauthored by Bruce Tate.

When making framework decisions, consider if a lighter framework will do the required job. Using something like Hibernate, Prevayler, Spring, PicoContainer, NakedObjects, etc. can be a real win in many situations. Never blindly adopt a heavy framework just because it's the current bandwagon. Likewise, don't blindly adopt a lightweight framework in defiance. Always give due consideration to your choices.

 

He actually hits quite a few valid points here and I think they all warrant some thought.  Too often on this list we are guilty of advocating using mutators or advocating one pattern or another blindly wihout regard to the project being worked on. (Undoubtedly, many of us are also guilty of just using one method or another mindless of all the implications that come with such a choice.)  When really we should underscore all of our comments with "If it is right for your project."

Anyway I saw the link to this article at http://www.brajeshwar.com/ via mxna and thought, if you didn't see it, you might want to.


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