From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-03-11T04:35:00+09:00
Subject: Re: Which is better -- method option or multiple methods?

On 10.03.2008 20:09, Paul Mckibbin wrote:
> Method options are better if you ever want to extend it.

How is that?  How can a single method that switches over one or more 
arguments to decide what to do be easier extended?  What if you detect 
that the new or one of the algorithms needs an additional argument which 
is not needed by other algorithms?

> I personally 
> would have both in library code, but would be inclined to keep the 
> multiple method code private to keep the interface clean.

A clean interface in my world is one where one method does exactly one 
thing - and not multiple things.  If all those algorithms share some 
common code this should go into another method that all of them use. 
Much cleaner, more maintainable and easier to understand.  Just think 
about a method's documentation, that can do 5 different things vs. five 
methods with their own documentation.

I tried to come up with a good search string for Google, 'method "do 
just one thing"' is currently the closest that reveals some hits about 
the matter.

Kind regards

	robert