Re: A working document

On Fri, 28 Dec 2001, Cezary Zielinski wrote:

[... ``component image'' vs ``component interface''...]
> > Why use another term when the whole computer science world uses
> > ``interface'' as the term to represent the view that a component/class
> > offers to the outside world? ``Interface'' can be used with both
> > components and classes; it covers both data encapsulation as
> > ``methods''.
>
> To me an interface is something between two faces - a kind of a go-between.
> An image is something that is internal to a component. It is a data
> structure ineternaly representing inside a component A another component B.
> It is a representation (obviously simplified) of component B inside
> component A. This data structure has to get its contents from outside the
> component A. It gets this contents from component B through some kind of an
> interface between them.
> Thus two different names are needed.
>
This local representation of the interface of another component is
called a ``proxy'' in computer science. The proxy is one of the
best-documented software patterns around, so I would think _very_ hard
before replacing its name by something else :-)

Herman

Herman