Lesson plan
Type generalization
Type generalization is a technique commonly used in refactoring. The idea is to draw on the benefits of object-orientation and make more-generalized types, thus enabling more code sharing, leading to better maintainability as there is less code to write. Too-general code can, however, become completely useless, leading to spaghetti code doing effectively nothing. Type generalization refers to making more general or more abstract some subset of the traits of a specific type. A superclass has wider use than a specific subclass, and so is more 'general'. An example of generalizing a type would be moving a method from a child to a parent class for common use by all the parent class' children, not just the original child. Another example, in the Java programming language, would be access to an object via an interface which isn't tied into a specific implementation of that interface.
Article summary
Type generalization is a technique commonly used in refactoring. The idea is to draw on the benefits of object-orientation and make more-generalized types, thus enabling more code sharing, leading to better maintainability as there is less code to write. Too-general code can, however, become completely useless, leading to spaghetti code doing effectively nothing. Type generalization refers to making more general or more abstract some subset of the traits of a specific type. A superclass has wider use than a specific subclass, and so is more 'general'. An example of generalizing a type would be moving a method from a child to a parent class for common use by all the parent class' children, not just the original child. Another example, in the Java programming language, would be access to an object via an interface which isn't tied into a specific implementation of that interface.
Key claims
No claims recorded.
Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
No sources recorded.
Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.