Section 12.2. Facing the Blank Page

12.2. Facing the Blank Page

So, you have some requirements. Maybe you even have some UI prototypes. How do you turn that into an object-oriented design for Java classes? How do you confront the paralyzing blank white of your whiteboard, terminal session, or easel?

The simplest way is to start with real-world objects. Stop thinking about everything you have read about object-oriented programming. Instead, ask yourself, "What are the real objects involved in this problem?"

In our case, the more you look at it, the simpler it gets. For the moment, the only real objects we have are peoplethe usersand accounts, that is, named pools of money. We know that users get accounts from "above," and that they may break those pools down into subaccounts, which they may own or delegate to other users.

At the broadest level, then, we seem to have two "classes" or types of real-world objects: Accounts and Users.