> I've read in some recent posts that Clorujians prefer data to APIs. I'm not > sure I understand what this means, in practice. When I'm in the early > stages of developing an application, the data structures undergo a great > deal of change. One of the ways, I isolate parts of the code from these > sorts of changes is by writing accessor functions. Maybe this is OO > thinking but it seems to me a wise application of DRY. > > Would these accessor functions be considered an API? If so, why should I > prefer accessing the raw data structure? If not, what is constitutes an > API?
I think Rich's comments in an interview with Fogus is helpful. http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/ Fogus: Following that idea—some people are surprised by the fact that Clojure does not engage in data-hiding encapsulation on its types. Why did you decide to forgo data-hiding? Hickey: Let’s be clear that Clojure strongly emphasizes programming to abstractions. At some point though, someone is going to need to have access to the data. And if you have a notion of “private”, you need corresponding notions of privilege and trust. And that adds a whole ton of complexity and little value, creates rigidity in a system, and often forces things to live in places they shouldn’t. This is in addition to the other losing that occurs when simple information is put into classes. To the extent the data is immutable, there is little harm that can come of providing access, other than that someone could come to depend upon something that might change. Well, okay, people do that all the time in real life, and when things change, they adapt. And if they are rational, they know when they make a decision based upon something that can change that they might in the future need to adapt. So, it’s a risk management decision, one I think programmers should be free to make. If people don’t have the sensibilities to desire to program to abstractions and to be wary of marrying implementation details, then they are never going to be good programmers. 2012/5/2 Mark <markaddle...@gmail.com>: > I've read in some recent posts that Clorujians prefer data to APIs. I'm not > sure I understand what this means, in practice. When I'm in the early > stages of developing an application, the data structures undergo a great > deal of change. One of the ways, I isolate parts of the code from these > sorts of changes is by writing accessor functions. Maybe this is OO > thinking but it seems to me a wise application of DRY. > > Would these accessor functions be considered an API? If so, why should I > prefer accessing the raw data structure? If not, what is constitutes an > API? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your > first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
