But an Interface is just a contract of the > methods a class provides. That's a very narrow definition. Method contracts are only useful in languges with compile-time type checking (which CF doesn't have), and for runtime environments that don't allow dynamic method refactoring (which CF does allow).
The other benefit of interfaces (and the vastly more important one with regard to CF) is that they allow you to specify that a single object is an instance of multiple types, without having to have all those types in the object's inheritance hierarchy. For example, I can say my User object implements the Employee, Parent, and Fireman interfaces, without having to make some kind of horribly nasty inheritance hierarchy. cheers, barneyb On 10/26/05, Gary Menzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > While I dont know the exact situation - and what you want to achieve with > all the different objects from within Coldfusion - there is another OO > pattern that you did not mention and that is one of Interfaces (and > Implements). > > It could be possible to have totally discrete classes to handle all the > validation and handling details of each - but have each Implement an > Interface that provides all the basic user functionality. > > However, Coldfusion doesn't support Interfaces (although I have seen a few > attempts to provide them). But an Interface is just a contract of the > methods a class provides. So, as long as you document that your classes > Implement a certain Interface, then you can be sure that instances of those > classes will have the necessary methods for you to call when you need the > generic information. > > Inheritance may work by having a "BasicUser" class and then inherit from > that for the specialisations. > > Composition and Inheritance could still be used by having your basic class > provide a "detail" method (as well as overriding "validation" methods). The > "detail" method could return the additional detail for the specialisations. > > Don't know if that helps answer your question though. > > Regards, > Gary Menzel > -- Barney Boisvert [EMAIL PROTECTED] 360.319.6145 http://www.barneyb.com/ Got Gmail? I have 100 invites. ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email. CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com). CFCDev is supported by New Atlanta, makers of BlueDragon http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/index.cfm An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
