Re: Generalized "observer" pattern

From:
=?UTF-8?B?RXJpayBXaWtzdHLDtm0=?= <Erik-wikstrom@telia.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 24 Sep 2007 08:23:44 GMT
Message-ID:
<kuKJi.9543$ZA.5057@newsb.telia.net>
On 2007-09-24 00:17, Gianni Mariani wrote:

Two issues here:

a) What is the accepted definition of "observer pattern". While I can't
point to anything specific, I do remember having issues with
inconsistency in the definition.


I would assume that it is the one given in the GoF book, if you do not
have it the wikipedia article is more or less a copy from the book,
especially the "Participant classes" section.

b) Generic observer design in C++. I have been pushing the Austria
"Twin" interface for a while and more recently the multi threaded
version of it "TwinMT" (see the 6129 alpha on sourceforge)

I am trying to distill the "fundamental" hard problems in software
development, especially regarding C++ and I've seen too many issues
relating to the observer pattern I think it is elevated to "fundamental".


I do not see how there can any issues with the observer pattern, it is
very simple, however I perhaps not very useful either. I prefer a more
advanced version (I am sure this is some pattern but I do not know its
name) where the observing class is not only informed that something has
happened, but also what. So instead of just having a notify() function
the observing class has a onFoo(Bar& sender, FooArgs arguments) function
that tells the observing class what happened (the arguments) and to whom
(the sender). Anyone know the name of this pattern?

--
Erik Wikstr??m

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