Re: OO and large packages

[Simon Wright <simon@pogner.demon.co.uk>]

tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) writes:

> Is there a good methodology to break up a complex object into multiple
> smaller packages?
>   In a windowing system I have a "window" object with a great many
> functions for both input and output, some of which are rather complex.

You could look at the (by now conventional) approach of
Xaw/Motif/Tk/Java, and for all I know MS-Windows, and regard the outer
window as a container for window interface components or widgets
(which may of course be themselves containers, recursively, but
include 'terminals' like buttons, menus, labels, entries ...). Widgets
have appropriate subsets of all possible behaviours (eg, buttons can
be pressed). The subsets tend to be reasonably small.

Come to that, why reinvent the wheel? Check out TASH at
http://ocsystems.com/ (http://ocsystems.com/xada/ I think).