Re: One object passing members to another class, modifying values

From:
Lew <lew@nospam.lewscanon.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.object,comp.lang.smalltalk
Date:
Wed, 16 May 2007 09:06:33 -0400
Message-ID:
<97CdnUedvtxEnNbbnZ2dnUVZ_o-knZ2d@comcast.com>
Ed wrote:

While I fully agree that there is always a case for breaking a rule in
special circumstances (even encapsulation), could I just note a humble
alternative to your approach, though I lack your insight into the
problem?


Aren't you the diplomat?

An answer could be to have TheObjectIwantToFullyLoad (and any
serialisable object) responsible for its own data serialisation. It
could have a method save(BitStream stream). This method is called by
ObjectContainer and it passes in the stream that will be written to
the file system.


Or you could use the built-in serialization in Java. Keywords like
"transient" help control what gets written or not.

Whatever serialization you use, bear in mind the advice upthread that
[de]serialization is a whole other public interface, like a public
constructor, and commits the class to a lifetime of engineering for
serialization. Joshua Bloch covers this in depth in /Effective Java/,
mandatory reading for the OP with respect to this issue.

(N.b., I am responding via clj.programmer, so I focus on Java solutions. I
have no idea why the cross-posts to comp.object and cl.smalltalk are there,
but I am ignoring that aspect.)

--
Lew

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