Constantine Stanislavski once wrote:
It is easy to have ideas in art but it can be hard to put them into practice.
I have long learnt that this applies to everything, not just art. In recent posts I have reviewed a project, WhitestarMediaLibrary, using SOLID and other design principles. I have got to the stage where I feel I should start writing some code and altering the project so it reflects the new structure.
However, there are issues with the implementation and over the next couple of posts I will cover these. The first of these problems is in regard to the libraries. In previous posts I discussed using a Properties object that contains the class to be injected and any configuration that is required for the object is then fed the same properties object. What I did not decide in previous posts is which class is responsible for instantiating the library. I also added two custom exception classes if an error occurs when instantiating the library. The resulting class diagram is below:
I am now thinking, was this the best way to do this? Could I have used a factory method where a class takes the config object instantiates the library and the factory feeds the library the properties file? This would be more in keeping with Single Responsibility Principle. Now the WhitestarLibrary class retrieves libraries but delegates the creation and initialisation to a factory class e.g. LibraryFactory. The resulting structure is now:
