[Biococoa-dev] Re: a new design to please everybody (am I pleased?)

[Koen van der Drift]

On Jan 9, 2005, at 9:49 AM, John Timmer wrote:

>

> Non-typed methods mean that the sequence type has to be checked every 
> time
> the method is called, slowing the code down.

How much slow down will that be compared to the rest of the method? 
Most methods iterate over the sequence, so that will probably take much 
more time compared to one call to check the type.

>
> Although the class cluster idea is very appealing on an intellectual 
> level,
> it's going to take some extra work to implement it in such a way that 
> users
> (again, meaning non-contributing developers) will be able to grasp it
> easily.  And the internal structure is probably going to be extremely
> confusing to anyone downloading the source for the first time.  Given 
> that,
> I'm just wondering whether it's going to be more effort than it's 
> worth.  As
> someone noted a few mails ago, it's going to require extensive
> documentation, and the assumption that developers are any better about
> reading the documentation than regular users are.

I agree with that. The class cluster design still has the same issues 
as the current code (type check yes or no, return values, etc), and 
there are no real big advantages (at least I don't see them :). It's 
good that we keep talking on this subject, though, because it is the 
core of BioCocoa, and we all should feel comfortable with whatever we 
eventually decide on.

BTW, how about a class cluster for BCSymbol????   ;-)


cheers,

- Koen.