Why Hide The Object Data?

[Joe_Carrick]

Here are a couple of pics that show just a fraction of the Object Data for a Wall in Chief.  Then there is the pic that shows just how little of that information is available as attributes that could be used within a script.

 

That's not just annoying - it's pathetic.  Come on CA - open the doors!

[GerryT]

I would suggest that Chief just add as a Ruby attribute, the entire DBX data record for that object in what ever form it is now packed, and just publish the record protocol (data sequence) for that record type.  The Ruby macro would then unpack the record to access any data required. Ruby is incredibly easy and efficient in this type of operation.

 

In this manner Chief would not have to code each field individually, or mess with singleton methods,or even bother to address future revisions. Performance would be improved tremendously.That would eliminate a huge amount of programing as there must be several thousands of fields for all the object types. An almost impossible and VERY expensive task to address every attribute. I expect this data record already exist and could be made available almost overnight? The user then has access to any data it needs.

 

read/write would be the "icing"

[Doug_Park]

Exposing all of the data that makes sense is the ultimate goal.

 

In no case should the data of the class be exposed directly.

 

Internally the program treats all data as private with access methods to extract it. In some cases the data is returned unmodified, but in others a value may be computed, computed and cached, etc.

 

In order to expose data safely we need to run it through functions to ensure that it is correct. To do this requires adding a little code for each value we want to expose as well as thinking through the naming of the value so that it makes sense to the outside world. Internally, our names are not always as good as they would be if they were exposed to the public.

 

However, I am in complete agreement that everything that makes sense to expose should be exposed for both read and write as appropriate.

[Joe_Carrick]

Thanks Doug - now we just need to get the powers that be to agree and fund it