On May 31, 2007, at 3:46 PM, Mike R. Manzano wrote:
You can call super on a class (static) method? Neat.
A static method in C++, Java, or C# is just a function in a
namespace. A class method in Objective-C is a true class method like
you'd have in Smalltalk, so self, super, etc. will all do the right
thing.
Remember that Objective-C is a traditional object-oriented language:
You program by sending messages to objects. Messages are always
dispatched at runtime, and classes themselves are objects too.
The practical upshot of this is that certain design patterns that are
used to work around the lack of dynamic dispatch in C++, Java, and C#
are unnecessary when working in Objective-C, Smalltalk, Python, Ruby,
or other true object-oriented languages with dynamic dispatch.
One example is the use of factory and abstract factory patterns for
decoupling. In a dynamic language, it can be a code smell since the
classes themselves can be treated like factories.
For example, your design sounds something like this:
You allocate the factory and ask it for the defaultSomething. In your
test, to get a Something you can use for testing, you have
SomethingFactoryForTesting pose as SomethingFactory.
You can do this much more easily, since Objective-C is a true object-
oriented language, using class methods and subclassing:
Your regular code can just ask Something for its defaultSomething.
For your test, you can write a subclass:
@interface SomethingForTesting : NSObject
+ (id)defaultSomething; // returns a different singleton than its
superclass
@end
Then just use that subclass in your test code instead of its parent.
Everything else will still use the parent class, but your test code
will use the subclass.
-- Chris
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