Ok bad pun on Class development but that’s where I’m at in the current book.  I think I already have a follow-on book lined up for when I get done with this one.  It’s still a Intro style book, I tend to do that cause everybody has a different approach as to how to teach, what’s good foundation stuff and what’s not.  One example of this, the Head first book suggests using just a simple texted editor like notepad, instead of a IDE (integrated development environment) like NetBeans. The logic is your learn the IDE more then the language.  However the book I’m looking at reading next is the exact opposite.  It has whole sections dealing with how to use NetBeans to type out Java applications, Apps and so on. So yeah, in my opinion it’s always good to read though a couple of books.  The big down side though is sometimes you don’t want to pay to much attention when a topic is discussed that you think you already covered in the previous book.  This is tedious for sure, but it still needs to be read so you don’t miss the chance at some little gem of knowledge that you might otherwise not have known. 

Anyhow, back to the chapter at hand, They are discussing a methodology or approach to writing classes. Their task list goes:

  • Figure out what the class is suppose to do
  • List the variables and methods (Don’t forget to create methods to encapsulate your variables)
  • Write prepcode
  • Write test code
  • Implement the class
  • test
  • Debug and re-implement, repeat as much as needed.

This seems like a pretty straight forward and logic approach, which brings to mind a few questions (I know, I seem to question everything sometimes).The first and foremost is that I need a better method of deciding what classes I need, Ok not really a question as much as a observation.  Next is, that they, rightfully, say a programming workplace might have a different approach to writing java code.  I realize that everybody does things a little bit differently but really, how much could you change without totally throwing out any sort of quality control.  If you dropped test code and debug.  Ok almost went off on a rant without really knowing how it works in a real programming shop.  So if anybody would like to fill in the blanks as to how the real work flow for a java programming shop it would be cool to know.