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[Alaric B. Snell]
> Nobody's yet given a good reason why data encapsulation is bad.
>
> Some people have spoken out about problems with things that 'hide' your
data
> away from you, but that's not the point - sure you encapsulate some data
> badly:
>
Generally speaking, and maybe especially for business uses, data is much
more long-lived than process. Thus it is often reused in ways not
originally expected. Data mining is just one example. So it can be useful
to construct business objects from data and behavior to accomplish a
particular task or process, but the data often lives on.
In this way data can have a special place relative to objects and process,
and there is a real place for "passive" data. On the other hand, if data is
being exchanged for a particular purpose and then it will evaporate, none of
the above really holds, and you might as well send objects or marked-up
attempts to simulate them.
Imagine an active data object that corrects the spelling of the text that
you encapsulate in it. One day you want to send an example of a mispelled
word on purpose, but -whoops! - the object fixes it for you anyway. Active
data may or may not be what you want - it all depends, as always. But it
would be conservative (and safe, I would say) to send data-only and then
process it as you like. Heck, even send the processor, why not?
Cheers,
Tom P
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