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RE: Sean McGrath hits a home run

• To: "'Tim Bray'" <tbray@t...>,"'XML Dev'" <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Sean McGrath hits a home run
• From: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>
• Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 17:23:26 -0000
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <3DFDEF09.9000201@t...>
• Reply-to: <michael.h.kay@n...>

> 
> http://www.itworld.com/nl/xml_prac/04182002/
> 
> Outstanding. -Tim
> 
A quote:

"Secondly, I have learned that APIs can play into the hands of those who
don't really want you to understand what is going on underneath, as that
would threaten their control over your conceptual model of how the
system works."

This is of course what encapsulation is all about. Encapsulation
prevents hacking; it raises the level of abstraction; it prevents
programmers getting locked into today's implementation of an abstract
service. (Just as "the purpose of an operating system is to stop
programmers from using the hardware"). The result is that it may take
longer to write software but the software lasts for longer. Sean only
seems to be interested in one side of this trade-off. Sometimes that's
appropriate, sometimes it isn't.

If Sean is saying "encapsulation is always bad", then I don't think
that's outstanding at all.

Michael Kay

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Sean McGrath hits a home run
    • From: "Jeffrey Winter" <j.winter@n...>

• References:
  • Sean McGrath hits a home run
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>

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