[plt-scheme] Structure design, Immutable vs Mutable

From: John Clements (clements at brinckerhoff.org)
Date: Wed Sep 26 17:07:15 EDT 2007

On Sep 26, 2007, at 1:11 PM, Matthias Felleisen wrote:

>
> One specific point: I don't understand why you speak of subtypes
> in your message. I consider this issue entirely orthogonal.

I think that Henk is pointing out the fact that immutable objects  
lead to more object creation, which highlights the importance of the  
"factory problem"; that is, you need a factory method or an abstract  
factory in order to create these objects.

Of course, the factory problem is certainly not limited to state- 
passing style and its derivatives.

John Clements


>
> On Sep 26, 2007, at 1:53 PM, Henk Boom wrote:
>>
>> Another problem I see with subclasses is if I have a body method  
>> which
>> moves a body by some distance.
>>
>> ;move-body: body vect-2d -> body
>>
>> This would create a new body with a changed position but all the old
>> fields copied over. However, if I have a player object, I would have
>> to override this method even though the behaviour for moving  
>> player is
>> not that different, just because it would need to know to return a
>> player instead of a body (and copy the extra fields over).
>>
>> I feel like there is some conceptual leap I have not made yet. Are
>> there ways around these problems, or should I give up and move  
>> back to
>> using mutation for this? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>>
>>     Henk Boom
>> _________________________________________________
>>   For list-related administrative tasks:
>>   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>
> _________________________________________________
>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>  http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2223 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.racket-lang.org/users/archive/attachments/20070926/4f7f6771/attachment.p7s>

Posted on the users mailing list.