Re: Centralizing instantiation?

This is probably going to sound awkward due to my lack of vocabulary so
please forgive me....

I have a project that has 21 classes in it that do various things to do
with generating my resume. (It generates the resume in a variety of
formats like HTML, PDF, Word, etc. etc.) There is basically what I would
have called a "mainline" in my COBOL days - I suppose we might call it a
driver these days? - that kicks everything off.

Now, a few of the classes need database access - for example, I store
information about references there - and several of the classes have the
potential of generating log messages.

I'm trying to figure out when I should initialize the logging and
database connection.

I'm leaning toward getting my database connection in the constructor of
the "mainline" and then passing that connection to each of the classes
that needs it as it is invoked in the mainline. I'm also leaning toward
getting my logger during the constructor of the mainline and, again,
passing it to each of the classes kicked off by the mainline.

This ensures that both the connection and logger are available to any
class that needs it. I'm also thinking that if creating the logger or
getting the database connection is a problem, I should probably find out
right at the start and probably abort the whole program if either one has
a problem. I'm inclined to think that if I'm unable to generate log
messages when I want to write them, that I shouldn't even get started.
The database connection is a little less categorical; if it is not
available, I could conceivably generate the resumes and simply display a
message to say that the references are not currently available so try
again later.

On the other hand, there are some classes that won't ever need to log -
little convenience classes that don't have any reason to throw exceptions
- and some of the work could be done even without the database connection
being there. Also, an argument might be made to the effect that the
classes that need database access (or even the logger) could simply
create their own _when needed_. That would also simplify the code
somewhat; if I do create the logger and database connection right at the
start and pass them to each and every class, then I add two extra
parameters to each constructor making more clutter than may be viewed as
strictly necessary.

What do you folks do in comparable situations?

I have a feeling I'm thinking of this too much like a COBOL programmer
and not enough like an OO/Java programmer.....