[Chicago-talk] Class::Factory, One more question

me at heyjay.com me at heyjay.com
Sat Mar 20 16:05:17 CST 2004


that makes more sense, thanks.  I'm going to re-read the docs

Jay
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Thomason" <jthomasoniii at yahoo.com>
To: "Chicago.pm chatter" <chicago-talk at mail.pm.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Chicago-talk] Class::Factory, One more question


> Ahh, the abstract factory pattern. One of my personal
> favorites in my bag of tricks. I can never recall the
> difference between abstract and concrete factory
> patterns, though, so this might be a normal factory.
> 
> Anywho...it's extremely useful when you know that
> you're going to need a particular type of object, but
> not which particular subclass it is you'll need. Say
> you have a user interface where the user selects a
> piece of fruit. You don't know what it is in advance,
> but you'll need to access info on it later. You can
> put a big if/then/else into your code to check what
> comes in.
> 
> use Fruit;
> use Fruit::Apple;
> use Fruit::Orange;
> #etc.
> 
> if ($choice eq 'Apple') {
>   $fruit = Fruit::Apple->new();
> } elsif ($choice eq 'Orange') {
>   $fruit = Fruit::Orange->new();
> }
>  
> etc.
>  
> It scales poorly. When you need to add new fruit, you
> have to alter all of your ladders. With a factory, you
> just register the type somewhere.
> 
> #in some module, conf file, etc., someplace else:
> $factory->register('orange', 'Fruit::Orange');
> 
> Then your code is simply:
> 
> $fruit = Fruit->object_of_type($choice);
>  
> voila!
> 
> For a more concrete example, I have an applications
> framework running my site (www.jimandkoka.com). it
> also runs a few other sites (www.themensroom.net,
> www.lunchmanager.com). Some of the individual
> applications are on only one site (my biking log), but
> some are on all sites (the poll application, for
> instance). Other things are global everywhere, such as
> users and groups. But the users are slightly different
> on the 3 systems. The Lunch manager needs users to be
> able to choose to receive email, TMR needs users to
> register their ISCA username, my site needs none of
> those. Now, the polling application doesn't care about
> any of those extra doohickeys, it just cares about the
> basic stuff.
> 
> Now, I don't want to have to alter the polling app for
> each site, replacing my login validation checks with
> the individual modules (JIM::User, TMR::User, and
> Lunch::User, in this case). That gets messsy. Then if
> I ever want to put my polling app someplace else, I
> have to re-do another branch with another set of
> modules.
> 
> One solution is to just use the superclass (JIM::User,
> in this case), since it doesn't care about the extra
> thingys anyway. Still, that locks it into using users
> that subclass off of JIM::User, which may not be
> desired. As long as the interface is the same, it
> shouldn't care what the User objects are.
> 
> So my solution is to use a factory method. My calls go
> from:
> 
> JIM::User->login_via_web();
> to 
> JIM::Object->class_for_type('user')->login_via_web();
> 
> Sure, I still need to use JIM::Object, but the polling
> app uses it anyway, so no big deal. Just specify the
> user type in the conf file, and then I can change the
> actual object anytime I want (or as I'm doing, use
> different objects on different sites) and never need
> to touch the code.
> 
> It's great at allowing disparate components to
> communicate w/o directly knowing what they're talking
> to.
> 
> -Jim....
> --- Jay Strauss <me at heyjay.com> wrote:
> > One more question before I head into the office
> > 
> > I saw someone (on CDBI) mention class::factory.  I
> > read the doc but don't
> > really get it (though it looks like it might be
> > neat).  Can someone explain
> > when/why you'd use Class::Factory?
> > 
> > Thanks
> > Jay
> > 
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> 
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