Re: [jmoney-devel] Important improvements in JMoney

[Johann G. <joh...@gm...>]

> As I see it, these are the reasons for removal of the interfaces.
> 
> 1. Less classes to maintain. With the removal of the classes for the
> mutable objects, we have reduced the number of classes per model class
> from 3 to 2. It would be nice to reduce it to 1. If a new method is
> added, this can be added and documented in one place only. It is easier
> to maintain one file than to have to maintain two files and keep them
> always in sync.
> 
> 2. It is argued that an interface separates the interface from the
> implementation. However, the 'public' keyword does the same thing. A
> developer is free to modify any line of code in a class that does not
> have the 'public' keyword in it. What is the advantage is duplicating
> the public methods in an interface? By using an interface, the plug-in
> developer sees only the interface when the developer looks at the
> definition of a method. However, I am not sure this is a good thing.
> If I look at the definition of a method, I want to see the
> implementation. Javadoc can produce documentation that documents only
> the public methods. Therefore I see no advantage in duplicating the
> public method definitions in an interface.
> 
> 3. Interfaces increase the amount of casting to get the non-public
> methods. If code within the same package gets an object then it gets
> the interface. If that code wants to access a method with default
> (package only) access, then the interface must be cast to the
> implementation class (as only the public methods would be in the
> interface).

I thought about those interfaces again, and I think that we should
keep the solution as simple as possible, i.e. remove the interfaces
because there is currently no use. One can still re-add them later on
if they should be needed.

Johann