[jboss-dev] Abstract classes?

[Adrian Brock]

On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 17:26 +0200, Ales Justin wrote:
> I don't think they were ever truly abstract.
> 
> It just indicates that they are there as a default impl,
> which you can easily override if in need of something more.
> 
> I agree with you that it's probably not the best name choice,
> it could be Base or really Default,
> but I think you should ping Adrian to explain you the real motivation 
> behind the name.

"Abstract" has nothing to do with the "abstract" keyword in java.

Except that the semantic is similar. 

i,e. The classes are not usable by themselves, they usually need to be
extended or are at least designed to be mainly extended if you don't
want "noop" behaviour.

The rest of the argument is just "humpty dumpty".

<quote>When I use a word it means exactly what I say it means;
no more, no less.</quote>

i.e. what you call the class has no bearing on whether the class is 
"well designed". Although It might have a bearing 
on the user's confusion due to lack of due diligence and bad
assumptions. ;-)

The AbstractXXX convention in the MC is very far from the worst
naming decision that I've ever made. :-)

> 
> David M. Lloyd wrote:
> > I think they *were* abstract at one point, but then someone realized 
> > that they shouldn't be, for whatever reason.  Seems like a bit of a 
> > design red flag to me though.
> > 
> > - DML
> > 
> > On 05/25/2009 04:19 AM, Jaikiran Pai wrote:
> >> I have seen many classes in some JBoss core projects whose names start 
> >> with "Abstract" but the classes are *not* abstract. Just to cite an 
> >> example, there's AbstractInjectionValueMetaData - not picking on this 
> >> specific class, but this is just an example. Any reason why we are 
> >> naming them Abstract?
> >>
> >> regards,
> >> -Jaikiran
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Adrian Brock
Chief Scientist
JBoss, a division of Red Hat
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