There are lots of “rules” we must follow in object-oriented software development and the article The Genius of the Law of Demeter by Javadevguy summarizes how they are useful. From what I put together, it seems like the Law of Demeter took abstract concepts and basically put them into a universal set of rules for Object-Oriented code.
I thought that the law of demeter must be a big deal if someone decided to sit down and write a lengthy blog post about it. This content ended up being interesting as it tried to convince readers why they should obey this “law.” The Law of Demeter basically paves the way for what users can do to a given method. It is kind of like considering the restrictions or possibilities based on the method. One of the takeaways I got from this is how there is a lot of focus on communication between two objects.
The rules listed in the article are as follows–noting that it says “For all classes C, and for all methods M attached to C, all objects to which M sends a message must be”:
self(thisin Java)- M’s argument objects
- Instance variable objects of C
- Objects created by M, or by functions or methods which M calls
- Objects in global variables (
staticfields in Java)
Another useful takeaway I got from this article came from observing the code examples Javadevguy included; how Rule #1 covers that any method can be called on the current object. I also noted when there would be an instance where the law would prohibit something is not “sending a message” to any already existing object that is held in instance variables of other classes.
This will affect the way I continue to do work as an Object-Oriented developer. I mean, in life when you learn there is a more useful or structured way to help you achieve more effective results, you would want to try or follow it, right? For my future use, I will acknowledge (like other blogs and articles) that the Law of Demeter is less of a law and only a suggestion or a guideline.
Overall, I would say that the content has helped further solidified my understanding of some Object-Oriented coding concepts. I agree with the content as it is trying to help people become better developers or better understand the Law of Demeter in general.
Article: https://javadevguy.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/the-genius-of-the-law-of-demeter/
From the blog CS@Worcester by samanthatran and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
In my software design course, I recently learned about how using design patterns helps you code better. I thought it would be a good review to go over the concepts this article introduces and potentially link it to things from class and maybe even add some things we did not get through during class.
“Forget about automating your regression tests” is some bold advice from Bas Dijkstra, who has experience as a test automation consultant. It made me wonder what exactly led him to making this kind of statement on regression test scripts and his article, On Ending the Regression Automation Fixation, covered various reasons why.
As someone who will be graduating within the next year, I’m always interested in what software development is currently like. Ekaterina Novoseltseva uses some 2018 statistics and presents interesting facts about software development through Apiumhub—which is a software development company based in Barcelona. The data in this article comes from a collection of over 300 answers from different countries around the world; starting with the challenges in software development.
According to music artists, two is better than one. When it comes to designing code that has two parts, this may not be the case. In Max Kanat-Alexander’s article, he explains how he has a personal rule of needing to know how generic his code needs to be. He describes it as if he were designing an audio decoder and started out with supporting WAV files and then later needed to add support for MP3 files. His solution was for what he only needed on its own instead of having to copy and paste the common parts for the format; he emphasizes that “it’s not just two implementations that are bad, but also two locations.” Another rule Kanat-Alexander has for helping this stay consistent is to create code well enough to ensure you would ideally never have to go back and change it if another part of the code has to be modified.
To kick off this series, I wanted to introduce why Software Quality Assurance (SQA) testing is important not only for testers to understand, but for developers as well. From my experience, I’ve become familiar with manual testing and exploring different types of automated testing for web applications. I wanted to know a little more about how being a good developer also includes being a good tester and found an article on SimpleProgrammer which reveals the importance of knowing how to test.
