Object Orgy - Consequences

Consequences

The consequences of an object orgy are essentially a loss of the benefits of encapsulation:

  • Unrestricted access makes it hard for the reader to reason about the behaviour of an object. This is because direct access to its internal state means any other part of the system can manipulate it, increasing the amount of code to be examined, and opening the door to future abuse.
  • As a consequence of the difficulty of reasoning, design by contract is effectively impossible.
  • If much code takes advantage of the lack of encapsulation, the result is a scarcely maintainable maze of interactions, commonly known as a rat's nest or spaghetti code.
  • The original design is obscured by the excessively broad interfaces to objects.
  • The broad interfaces make it harder to re-implement a class without disturbing the rest of the system. This is especially hard when the clients of the class are developed by a different team or organisation.

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