Shortcut Constructor Method & Conversion
I left my book and notes at work yesterday, hence the late post.
Shortcut Constructor Method
What is the external interface for creating a new object when a Constructor Method is too wordy?
Sometimes creating an object is exorbitantly wordy. The example that the author gives (in javascript) is the following:
var p = new Point({ x: 1, y: 2 })
Add methods to a lower level object that can construct your objects. Take care to only do this rarely.
This can’t be done with the example given in javascript, but the idea is to do something like the following:
var p = ( 1 x 2 )
Personally, I’m very wary of this idea. I see the value, but even operator overloading, which is a step HIGHER level than this, is usually viewed skeptically. I do think it’s a good idea to make shortcut methods to instantiate related objects, but that’s a far sight better than creating a method on all integers. If you do monkey-patch something like integer, it would be best if it were done dynamically, so only the code in your own project sees it.
Conversion
How do you convert an object’s format to another object’s format?
This is (at least to me) quite obvious. Some would think that they should add methods to every object to convert to other formats. So one might monkey-patch the DOM stuff to return a jquery DOM thing with the asJQDom method or something like that. Of course doing that means you’re going to end up with a ton of random conversion methods.
Convert objects by merely instantiating the second object type
This just seems so obvious I almost feel bad even writing it…
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