There Is No Spoon
Something learned early when studying OOP is to name classes as nouns or noun-phrases and name methods as verbs. It seems like too simple an idea to make better object-oriented designs, but it makes a big difference. In fact, there is reasonable evidence that adherence to this idea could make a design, and ignorance of it could break one. The evidence comes from my own experiences refactoring code as well as what I’ve recently learned while studying Smalltalk.
Naming has such an effect because better names reduce the context an object has, i.e., what an object is aware of versus what it needs awareness of to do its job. Removing unnecessary information raises the level of abstraction providing more opportunity for reuse and minimizes the chance that the message needs changing when requirements change.
A message name constrains the possible interpretations to some extent, which is good. This indicates what the program is doing when the object sends the message and hints to implementing objects the context in which they are operating. However, we should only constrain the meaning of a message as much as necessary and not so much to exclude other valid uses.
To summarize what I’ll be talking about: If an object sends a message that mentions any noun other than those that indicate the parameters it’s passing then there is likely added context and a case for renaming.
Notice I said “likely”. There’s no need to deal in absolutes (as only the Sith do). As I’ve learned more about programming, and life, I’ve learned that nothing is absolute. Everything is relative. You can find exceptions to every rule. Black and white are just acute versions gray.
Messages should only include nouns within their context because messages are ignorant of the things that respond to them and the inner parts of the things that respond to them.
If you remember the movie “The Matrix”*, there is the famous scene when Neo visits The Oracle and meets a boy who bends spoons with his mind. When Neo attempts this, the boy gives him a helpful tip:
Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth…there is no spoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. -Spoon Boy, The Matrix movie
The Secret Squad 