[Chicago-talk] A question of style: Class::Accessor

[Jay Strauss]

Ok, I'm convinced.  Now I just have to rewrite.  

Jay
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andy Lester" <andy at petdance.com>
To: "Chicago.pm chatter" <chicago-talk at mail.pm.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 9:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Chicago-talk] A question of style: Class::Accessor


> > except, I'm still inside the class.  I'd use the methods, from outside 
> > the
> > class
> 
> I understand that you're still inside the class.  I still strongly 
> suggest that you use the accessors that you've provided.
> 
> 1) What if you have $user->name() and inside the class you use 
> $user->{name} but somewhere down the road you do some manipulation with 
> $user->{name} inside $user->name()?  Say you want it to return a 
> proper-cased string?  Now you're going to either replicate that code to 
> proper-case the string, or you're going to go and change your 
> $user->{name} to $user->name anyway.
> 
> 2) If you use your accessor methods, then you're effectively testing 
> them out.  What if your accessor is broken somehow?  You'll never know.
> 
> 3) You're tying your code to the specific implementation of your 
> object.  Objects don't have to be hashes: Maybe you want to use an 
> array, like in WWW::Mechanize::Link.
> 
> 4) Maybe you want to change the internal naming convention.  You 
> shouldn't have to go retrofit your code to do so.
> 
> There is only one reason to not use the accessor methods, and that's 
> because for some reason you're microoptimizing your code for speed and 
> you can't afford the function calls.  If you've gone ahead and profiled 
> your code, say, with Devel::DProf, and you know that calls to your 
> accessors are causing a slowdown, and you've eliminated other sources 
> of speedup, and you comment your code explaining WHY you're using the 
> attributes directly, then sure, go ahead.
> 
> Heck, accessors can even be clearer: $user->name vs. $user->{name}.
> 
> xoa
> 
> --
> Andy Lester
> andy at petdance.com, AIM:petdance
> http://petdance.com/ http://use.perl.org/~petdance/
> 
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