With regards the importance of maintainabillity, is it necessary to envisage no future changes to our classes by the ficitious Junior programmer, or that they will be allowed to modify & recompile the class?
For instance a GUI container, should it be written with a bias towards protected getters to leave everything open to a subclass, or is it okay to assume a complete rewrite since a couple of combos, a few labels and a button does not ammount to a great development investment.
I am thinking specifically of the GUI but this applies throughout.
Meaning, you have no idea what that Junior Programmer will be required to do. So you code should be maintainable and extensible by anyone. So consider this in your choices.
Don't assume that the GUI would be re-written, subclassed, or changed, it could be none, one, two , or all happen.
For once, I'll say "Keep It Simple!" myself . When related to business functionality, a GUI class is very unlikely to be subclassed one day.
Regards,
Phil.
mike acre
Ranch Hand
Joined: Sep 23, 2003
Posts: 197
posted
0
The GUI part of the assignment states
Your user interface should be designed with the expectation of future functionality enhancements, and it should establish a framework that will support this with minimal disruption to the users when this occurs.
Concerning the word framework, I was thinking to implement the following to meet this requirement.
I only need to have 2 fields for the criteria component. I'm assuming that future fields will be JLabel/Component pairs so I'll have a class that marries these. Then have a Spring layout that respects a resizing for text fields but keeps preferred size for other components. This way adding new pairs to the container is straightforward. I will still provide accessors to retrieve the pairs I have implemented, for alternative uses. Some layout I will fix - resizing will not affect vertical.
Further thought regards card layout. This could be used to allow easier future development by addtion of further screens. Does this establish a framework?
Really my big question is 'what does establish a framework' really mean?
Philippe Maquet
Bartender
Joined: Jun 02, 2003
Posts: 1872
posted
0
Hi Mike,
Both your ideas are just great IMO. I personally like very much the abstraction you put in the GUI representation of the search criteria.
0
. When related to business functionality, a GUI class is very unlikely to be subclassed one day.