Re: Clean Object Class Design -- What is it?

>I know of metrics aimed at class design. People like Brian
>Henderson-Sellers to name one (see his book "Object-Oriented Metrics:
>Measures of Complexity", for example). Others include Ian Graham (he
>actually started an OO Metrics Club when he was with Swiss Bank some years
>ago - I went to the first meeting :) ). Their focus though is just on OO
>and not OODBs in particular. There are lots of other books and sources
>too, e.g.:

I understand how one can use comparative metrics for things like complexity. Is a "clean" design one that minimizes complexity? If so, how does one predict the stationary points in the minimization? We can automate tools to calculate metrics. Can we extend them to make cogent recommendations for improving metrics?

The introduction to his bibliography from the link you gave (http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/ESERG/bibliography.html) even states:

"Its meaning has not been extended to embrace general rules of style or principles of design."

I really am interested in the principles of design more than anything.

>There are some skilled OODB developers that I have met over the years, who
>understand some of the issues in designing classes and have developed
>rules-of-thumb, based upon their experiences. However, I haven't
>personally come across any techniques/methods, but would be interested as
>well if anyone has references.

I already understand that the most intelligent and productive programmers use better mental heuristics for improving solutions over their less productive counterparts. Unfortunately, the majority of programmers are in the latter group.

I prefer to have well documented processes and principles to empower the less productive. I suspect (quite strongly) that the underlying principles in good OO design are the same as the underlying principles in good Relational design.

>Off the top of my head, this might be worth
>a quick look at too:
>
>"Object-Oriented Database Design: What is the Difference with Relational
>Database Design":
>http://wwwiti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~schmitt/Publications/SaaConSch95.html

Just from the abstract, I can already tell that the author falls prey to many common misconceptions and fallacies. Received on Sun Jul 22 2001 - 01:29:37 CEST