4. Object Reuse

• When design of an object is complete, an object becomes an artifact of the system.

• That is,

  • a unit of maintenance

  • often a unit of documentation

  • a unit of testing.

• Could such unit be reused in the future designs?

  • Claim that purpose of OO technology is reuse of objects is largely overstated.

  • Concepts such as polymorphic operations and encapsulation of internal data are actually much more important benefits.

  • Software architecture has to support not only reuse, but also behavior, functionality, performance, economic and technological constraints, trade-offs, and many other things.

    • However, if there is a potential for reuse in the future, it should definitely be considered part of the design consideration.