CSE687 - Object Oriented Design

Design Note #5
Display Information, not Data

Design Note #5:

• You will design and implement a piece of code once, but, if you've done that well, it will be used hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. That means that the net productivity of you and all your users will be much greater if you take the time to make your software easy to use.
• One of the most important factors in ease of use is the repeatability and understandability of your outputs. For display, that means that you organize and interpret your output for users so that you give them information.

  Otherwise, if you simply push out whatever data comes into the display package as is, without organization, labeling, and interpretation, then your users have to do that every time they use your code - Yikes! - thousands of times!

• If you do that you've just made shelfware. It will be used once, then be put on the shelf. What a waste of your time and your company's resources.
• Graphical User Interfaces help you make your output look nice and help you handle user events effectively. However, they do not transform your data into information. That's up to you.

  Console output can be effective ways of displaying information too.

• There aren't any good recipes for creating information. It's one of the most creative things you will do as a designer. Looking at good examples is always helpful.

Conclusions for: Extract Function instead of Cut and Paste