Re: Java and OO Concepts

[Thorbjoern Ravn Andersen <ravn@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Pete Hall skrev:
> Thorbjoern Ravn Andersen wrote:
>   
> > Unless you have good reason to, do not use double/float/int/ but instead
> > their object equivalents.
> >     
>
> Thorbjoern, why do you say that?
>
>   
I was actually wondering myself when I wrote it but could not crystalize 
out a reason then.

It is basically my personal experience in what gives the least 
resistance in the long run, where I have reached that conclusion.

Primitive types are not objects so they cannot be subclassed if 
different behaviour is needed.  They cannot be used as parameters to 
methods expecting an object (like slf4j which I use a lot), and ALWAYS 
require special treatment everywhere.   They cannot have a descriptive 
toString method!

(Autoboxing helps but is not available in 1.4 which we still need to 
target for some customers).

If you need to do lots of scientific calculations, fine thats what they 
were designed for.  If you need to haul data around and present it, 
objects will do fine.  Also please note that doubles and floats are not 
good for exact numbers - if rounding errors (e.g. on stock inventory) 
are a matter of concern you need something else.  For objects you can 
change the underlying representation without changing the source 
everywhere it is used.

Please note that this goes for fields in classes, not counters in code etc.