Re: [Rails-devel] Rails2.0: States and Models as Observables

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

Stefan,

This all looks pretty good to me.

> I consider the java.util.Observable/Observer implementation is not a
perfect
> fit for Rails, I preferred to write my own instead.
> However the Observer interface could potentially change, as I am stil
working
> on the needs and constraints of the existing GUI.

Wouldn't it be better to use different class/interface names, to avoid
confusion with the standard Java names Observable and Observer?  
Not that I have any good proposals. 
Publisher/Subscriber aren't wrong but sound a bit pompously here.
Perhaps ObservableItem and ObservingItem or ObservingElement?
 
> Currently an Observer only provides an update(Observable obs, String
> text) method. The latter argument provides a text update for the standard
> cases.

Did you consider the cases where currently a ViewObject is passed?  This can
(in theory) contain anything that can be serialized (currently to a String
only).

> I am wondering if I should add a proxy approach, such that the Observer
can
> specify a function which has to be called that can be specific for each
> Observable observed. Or if I should be more restrictive and allow each
> Observer to observe ONLY one observable, thus dropping the need to
> specify the Observable in the interface method.

Not sure what you mean here.

Erik.