Re: classes and inheritance revisited

From:

Lew <lew@nospam.lewscanon.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.help

Date:

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:59:49 -0500

Message-ID:

<YLGdnaXwXYb76EnYnZ2dnUVZ_rWnnZ2d@comcast.com>

John T wrote:

You are correct. I think I'm a bit too ambitious. I need to start out with
the lowest classes, get them working first and then worry about inheritance,
encapsulation and abstract classses.

It usually makes more sense to take a roughly "top-down" approach, that is,
from the very beginning design your inheritance. You will probably have poorer
results starting at the "lowest classes". How would you even know what is
"lowest" unless you have a sense of the hierarchy?

The design or modeling phase of development is where you elicit the data
structures in your domain of discourse. If your analysis is sound, your class
design can mirror it without too very much difficulty.

Seriously though...
if I have a whole bunch (there's that susinct word again) of
classes like:

houseCat
domesticDog
deer
moose
wolf
coyote
lion
tiger
bear (oh my)
snake

By nearly universal, Sun-recommended Java convention, class names begin with
an upper-case letter. If you follow that convention you will find it easier to
communicate source-code ideas.

I will get these classes working to the point where I can create new
reference objects and have arrays and ArrayLists working. Then I can take
it up one level.

Empty classes, without attributes or behaviors, are sufficient for that goal.

- Lew