Chapter 7 -- Smart Proxy

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Chapter 7

What can you surmise from this scenario?

Ms. Smart Proxy says, "I accept this award on behalf of Bill Stamatakis, who could not be here tonight because he is on a business trip in Tokyo. Bill wanted me to relay his sincerest gratitude for this gesture and to thank the following people for their contributions that lead to this award…"

Based on this excerpt, you can guess that Ms. Smart Proxy represented Bill Stamatakis at an awards ceremony by accepting a prize intended for him, and communicated his appreciation to the audience. Hence, the expected outcome was satisfied when Bill's name was called to receive his award at the podium. If Bill knew he would be unavailable to attend the ceremony but chose not to ask someone to fill in for him or did not notify the members of the ceremony committee, the presenter would have been in an awkward predicament.

Ms. Smart Proxy's role was therefore important in keeping the award presentations flowing smoothly. One can easily imagine other scenarios in which a system would break down if the actions associated with a specific individual were not carried out by the individual, or by a representative of that individual, also known as a proxy. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of a proxy is "The person who is substituted or deputed to act or vote for another."

Replacing the word "person" with "object" allows us to view the concept of a proxy from the perspective of object-oriented software development.