To interface or not to interface

[Walter Bright]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Mon, 24 May 2010 14:36:57 -0400, Walter Bright 
> <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>> and on point 3, why is it not OK to *also* provide interfaces in 
>>> addition to ranges as dcollections does?  That is, take away 
>>> dcollections' interfaces, and you have essentially compile-time 
>>> polymorphism, they all support ranges etc.  Interfaces are also there 
>>> in case you want to use them in things like runtime plugin interfaces.
>>
>> The best reason I can think of is to avoid kitchen-sink style 
>> components. Components should do one thing well. Adding capability 
>> should be done with aggregation by the user.
> 
> What if it can do both things well (I would propose that dcollections 
> does)?

Probably for the same reason I don't want a microwave built in to my TV set. 
It's not a question of can it do both well, it's a question of is it a distinct 
component or not.


>> Sure, but I'd argue that adding such runtime polymorphism should be 
>> done with a separate add-on component. It should not be part of the 
>> collection component.
> 
> So I should specifically have to wrap a collection type in order to make 
> it runtime polymorphic, forwarding all the operations to the 
> collection?  Essentially something like:
> 
> class WrappedSet(Impl, V) : Set!V
> {
>    Impl!V impl;
> 
>    bool contains(V v) { return impl.contains(v);}
>    ...
> }
> 
> For what reason?  Why is it so bad to just stick Set!V on the end of the 
> implementation class?

Because then everyone who just wants a hash table winds up carrying around the 
complexity for things they don't want. The idea behind pluggable components is 
that each component should be minimal, and then the user aggregates them to meet 
his needs.



>>> Also, much of a user interface consists of various collections 
>>> (listview, treeview, child widgets, etc.).  Why is runtime 
>>> polymorphism good there, but not on a generic collections package 
>>> (not as the only means of access of course)?
>>
>> A user interface object is not a collection component, I think there's 
>> a confusion in the design there.
> 
> Don't user interface objects have data?  If a UI component is an 
> interface, how does it expose access to its data?

That's up to the UI interface designer. It has nothing to do with how it 
implements the collection under the hood.

> For example, a .NET 
> ListView control contains an Items property which you can use to access 
> the elements in the list view.  The Items property returns a 
> ListViewItemCollection which implements IList, IContainer, and 
> IEnumerable.  I've found these types of abstractions useful when 
> adding/iterating, etc.

A graphical component can wrap a collection component. I see no reason why the 
collection needs to have runtime polymorphism to enable that.