Fundamental Coding Principles
by Brian Russin
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Make Decisions at the Highest Possible Level
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When a logical decision must be made, it should be made at the highest level of the software where all the necessary information to make the decision is available.
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Member variable access should be public for Data-centric objects and private for Function-centric objects.
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In most cases, objects are either data-centric or function-centric, with a primary purpose to either hold data or perform functions, respectively.
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This is an observation, not a rule.
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I do not mean that data-centric objects should not perform functions, or that function-centric objects should not hold data, I just mean that an object usually leans heavily in favor of one purpose or the other.
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In languages that support default
public or private member variable access, this can be defined at a high level.
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In C++, for example, a data-centric object should be declared as a
struct or C-struct, and a function-centric object should be declared as a class
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The Only Reliable Analysis of Behavior is Derived Through Observation
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Reverse-engineering trumps documentation every time.
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Only the code tells the truth.