🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <439g17$nlv@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>, william.mc@pi.se says...
>
>The idea that a low level library need not be user friendly doesn't 
>sustain scrutiny. The fact is, since such a library
>will be used again & again & again & .... a very small investment
>of time in improving the usability of the library will repay
>itself thousands of times over. It is crucial that any library
>be well designed from the point of view of the library user. So
>instead I see ease-of-use as a design goal for any library.
>

I concur wholeheartedly. Any good class library needs to be designed with 
ease-of-use firmly in mind. During much heated discussion about reuse one 
of my colleagues stated "Design for *use*!". This sentiment being that if 
someone doesn't use something in the first place, they are not likely to 
reuse it.

A word that seems to come up more and more regarding class library and 
framework design is "approachability". During his recent tour-de-force 
with James Rumbaugh, Grady Booch admitted that his design of the Booch 
Components was not approachable--an important lesson for himself and 
other class library designers. My experience using the Booch Components 
confirms this: the collection classes are very powerful and elegant with 
consistency across the library; once you understand one collection type, 
you understand them all. However, it requires considerable effort to get 
your arms around that first collection. I encountered resistance getting 
other developers to adopt the Booch Components due to its steep learning 
curve.

I have not yet witnessed that power and elegance need be sacrificied to 
make class designs comprehensible; it just requires more effort and 
usually several iterations.

-------------------------------
Christopher Thames
World Fusion Software
cthames@worldfusion.com
-------------------------------


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