Code reuse

[Simon]

Hi all,

I'm hoping that some of you clever chaps could offer me some advice on code
reuse.

You see, whenever I make applications, I typically only find very limited
scope for code reuse. I also only find limited use for inheritance. For
example, the various types of users that my system might have to deal with.

I'm wondering if anyone could give me some tips on how to identify areas of
my design that could be reusable, where I can use inheritance and where to
use interfaces. I've read all the books that talk about why these things are
important but very few of them show you how to do it in the real world.

If anyone could point me to some online resources on this then that would be
great. I could also do with a couple of books on how to spot reusable
aspects of my designs and so on.

Any help would be great

Thanks all

Simon

[AlexS]

Hi, Simon

it's nice question because it is nearly same as "how can I live a fruitful
life" :-) No joking. Seriously.

As I see it, high-level design questions like this one are not in general
public domain because
- every person sees the world a bit differently from any another - to put it
mildly
- to prepare foundation for future is like trying to predict the future
- everything evolves and good today is bad tomorrow

However, I don't mean I know better. I would suggest to check
http://hillside.net/patterns/DPBook/DPBook.html and possibly
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?HistoryOfPatterns, where you can see some of most
well-known names and references.

HTH
Alex

[Jeff Louie]

Simon... There are many opportunities for code reuse, but Inheritance
may be
over hyped. See Bloch:

Favor composition over inheritance
Effective Java Bloch

As for interfaces, I have some guidelines here:

Inheritance vs Interfaces
http://www.geocities.com/jeff_louie/OOP/oop9.htm

Regards,
Jeff

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