Re: Re: Good Class/API Design ?

* Thus wrote Greg Beaver: > Adam Reiswig wrote: > >Hey all, I just got my hands on the excellent books PHP Anthology 1 & 2 > >and am wanting to start playing around with classes. My question to the > >list is, what, in your opinion, constitutes good class/api design? Is > >it better to design several smaller classes that each focus on one task > >and do that task well, or to build more general classes that handle a > >number of related tasks? > > > >Also, when you are beginning a new project, what methods do you find > >helpful to follow in taking your project from concept to finished? > > Do as much of the design away from the keyboard as you can. Use prose, > questions like "what do the users of this program need?" are a good > starting point, or "what is the problem that needs solving?" Draw > pictures and flowcharts for complex things you want to do (you don't > have to use UML, but its methodology is helpful). There are several > excellent and free UML modelling programs out there. Also, make sure the objects are not doing tasks they shouldn't be doing. A car object shouldn't have any methods that perform flying tasks, unless of course it implements the FlyingCar interface :) Curt -- Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."