Hi guys, Thanks for your replies. Can you give examples of usage patterns that would dictate that it is ok to move constants away from their owning classes? I also think the type safe enum pattern is a great idea, but I do not see this being used a lot in practice (though I think it should be). Justin
-----Original Message----- From: John Cavacas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 7:43 PM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: Design decision for Globals class I agree with David. Constants should be defined where they are relevant. But once you start using them in other places, then refactor them out to a common Constants class. The Type Safe Enum pattern might also be something worth looking at depending on your use of such constants. John At 04:15 PM 29/10/2003 -0800, you wrote: >In general, constants should be defined in the class they're relevant in. >The Struts Globals constants used to be defined in Action; however, >they're used in many places other than Action so it made sense to move >them to the new Globals class. > >David > >--- Justin Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > A colleague of mine and I are discussing the relative merits of having > > something like a Globals class. > > I argue that it removes the constants from their proper association with > > a > > parent/owning class, ignoring the concept of object orientation and > > losing a > > self-documenting aspect regarding its relationship in the class > > hierarchy. > > By making the constants global they inherently lose scope, type > > association, > > and encapsulation. Another drawback is that you now have to flip between > > two > > JavaDocs pages when looking at a class and its constants. > > My friend argues that it's easier to reference a Globals class when > > programming since all constant Strings useful in the architecture are > > collected within, and therefore this is reason enough to have a Globals > > class (works great obviously with IDE auto-complete). > > If anyone has the time or inclination to comment, what were the design > > decisions that led to the Struts Globals class? > > Thanks, > > Justin > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears >http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
