I’m starting a rewire on a home automation program. In the first write the object model was a little vague and I did not take full advantage of Real Basic. To move forward could someone give me a little clarity without overwhelming with too much complication?
In this program, I deal with a number of rather large 3-dimensional data arrays. The arrays formerly were stored permanently on a drive file and loaded to the program on startup. For simplicity, the arrays were then loaded in and stored as permanent array properties. To move forward what would the thinking process be to take advantage of the object model to hold these arrays or values. Class instances to me in the past were not permanent but now I don’t believe that is always true. Yes, admittedly I’m green but could you please give me a good direction to shoot towards?
Class instances are no more or less “permanent” than you make them
Same as arrays
Instances hold data
Arrays hold data
You have code to read the array and write the array
You’d need code to read and write the instances
Class instances just let you organize the data and the code together in one place instead of having global arrays and a module full of methods
So would you be thinking of many instances with array data or an instance with the total array or something else? I believe last time I created a Data Class and stored the complete arrays as properties. It that still a good approach?
really hard to say definitively without knowing a lot more about the app, the data, and hows its all used
And there lies the dilemma; which came first the Chicken or the Egg, It’s a rewrite for scratch. (-;
I’m trying to think object model to learn more but maybe the KISS, approach is best.
KISS applies
I’m assuming you have a module (or perhaps just methods spread around your code) that read the arrays and manipulate the data in some fashion ?
Sometimes thats a good place to start when deciding what things should be in a class - groups of related methods make sense to be in a class with the data they manipulate (its hard to be really specific without knowing your data etc)
But take the IDE
There’s a Class in there that represent a “Window layout” and a lot of code for dealing with “windows”
There’s classes in there for the controls
etc
That helps keep things in each of those classes focused on that item and the kinds of tasks that you need to perform with that data
Some of that may be exposed to othe code via public methods, properties, etc
And some wont be - it may be protected or private to the instance or class because nothing outside that class needs access to it
Consider that as you look at the code you have and how you move forwad