Professional C++

Chapter 5. Designing for Reuse

Reusing libraries and other code in your programs is an important design strategy. However, it is only half of the reuse strategy. The other half is designing and writing the code that you can reuse in your programs. As you've probably discovered, there is a significant difference between well-designed and poorly designed libraries. Well-designed libraries are a pleasure to use, while poorly designed libraries can prod you to give up in disgust and write the code yourself. Whether you're writing a library explicitly designed for use by other programmers or merely deciding on a class hierarchy, you should design your code with reuse in mind. You never know when you'll need a similar piece of functionality in a subsequent project.

Chapter 2 introduced the design theme of reuse. Chapter 4 explained how to apply this theme by incorporating libraries and other code in your designs. This chapter discusses the other side of reuse: designing reusable code. It builds on the object-oriented design principles described in Chapter 3 and introduces some new strategies and guidelines.

After finishing this chapter, you will understand:

• The reuse philosophy: why you should design code for reuse

• How to design reusable code

  • How to use abstraction

  • Three strategies for structuring your code for reuse

  • Six strategies for designing usable interfaces

• How to reconcile generality with ease of use.

The Reuse Philosophy

You should design code that both you and other programmers can reuse. ...