From: Jeff Cohen <cohen.jeff@...>
Date: 2006-02-14T04:11:01+09:00
Subject: Re: OO Design Advice

unknown wrote:
> I'm trying to master the more subtle elements of Rubyish OO design, and
> am having trouble with the following aspect:
> 
> I have a complicated, nested, value object ( eg
> order.customer.address.zipcode, or order.product[0].description).
> 
> This object needs to be sent to various feeds (usually XML, sometimes
> REST / HTTP form ) run by other companies.  

I say, you should definitely abstract away the "rendering" of the data 
from the data model itself.  I would recommend reading up a bit on the 
"strategy" design pattern, but basically the idea is to take something 
that varies (i.e. your feed formatting) and separate it from the things 
that don't vary (your data model).

So to render your data for a particular feed, you just instantatiate the 
particular renderer that you need for that feed, pass it an instance of 
your data, and then let the renderer worry about all of the formatting.

Make sense?  I can elaborate more if that would be helpful.

Jeff
www.softiesonrails.com

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