On Jul 15, 2008, at 9:13 AM, John Love wrote:
To tell you the truth, I *really* prefer calling a category an
extension
because "extension" just sounds more meaningful to me. Or, maybe just
plain, ole, generic "addition". "Category" just sounds like "type
of" or a
sub-class, but it's not that at all.
Yes, we're discussing words, but words are important .. Look up
"category"
in a dictionary where it talks about classification. To me,
classification
means sub-class.
The normal English meaning of "category" applies to the methods, not
the object. For example, a controller class might have a bunch of
accessor methods and a bunch of action methods. I think of each of
those bunches as categories of methods. When you extend a class with
a "category" in the Objective-C sense, you're typically creating a
logical "bunch." You typically use a logical name for the bunch as
the name of your category.
Grepping for category declarations in, say, Foundation shows how
category names identify logical grouping of methods:
% cd /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers
% grep @interface *.h | grep "("
NSArchiver.h:@interface NSObject (NSArchiverCallback)
NSArray.h:@interface NSArray (NSExtendedArray)
NSArray.h:@interface NSArray (NSArrayCreation)
NSArray.h:@interface NSMutableArray (NSExtendedMutableArray)
NSArray.h:@interface NSMutableArray (NSMutableArrayCreation)
NSAttributedString.h:@interface NSAttributedString
(NSExtendedAttributedString)
NSAttributedString.h:@interface NSMutableAttributedString
(NSExtendedMutableAttributedString)
NSCalendarDate.h:@interface NSDate (NSCalendarDateExtras)
NSCalendarDate.h:@interface NSDate (NSNaturalLangage)
...(a hundred or so more)...
--Andy
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