Code: To Reuse or Not to Reuse?

You have probably heard people singing the praises of code reuse since you took your first computer class or wrote your first line of code. Some people consider code reuse to be the savior of the software development community. Since the dawn of computer software, the concept of reusing code has been reinvented several times. The OO paradigm is no different. One of the major advantages touted by OO proponents is that you can write code once, and then reuse it to your heart's content.

This is true to a certain degree. As with all design approaches, the utility and the reusability of code depends on how well it was designed and implemented. OO design does not hold the patent on code reuse. There is nothing stopping anyone from writing very robust and reusable code in a non “OO language. Certainly, there are countless numbers of routines and functions, written in structured languages such as COBOL and C, that are of high quality and quite reusable.

Thus, it is clear that following the OO paradigm is not the only way to develop reusable code. However, the OO approach does provide several mechanisms for facilitating the development of reusable code. One way to create reusable code is to create frameworks. In this chapter, we focus on using interfaces and abstract classes to create frameworks and encourage reusable code.