The Pragmatic Craftsman :: Simplicity from complexity : by Stanley Kubasek ::

Adding new responsibilities to a class is a fairly common thing in coding. We do that when we get a request from a business person. We do that also when we refactor parts of a project. It’s an everyday activity you can say.

But here’s a question? How do you determine where to put the responsibility? What is the best place?

By the Information Expert pattern, you should add it to the class that has the information. It’s almost like in real life, you ask people that have the necessary tools and knowledge to do a job.

What is the Information Expert pattern? It is discussed in Applying UML and Patterns book. It is part of the GRASP patterns, which describe fundamental principles of object design and responsibility assignment. We hear a lot about GoF patterns but, in my opinion, not enough about GRASP patterns.

This pattern is simple and results in objects that do things related to the information they have.

However, if you applied this pattern everywhere, you would end up with a class that knows how to load its information, persist to db, etc. That’s not good. You are violating a lot of patterns by doing that (high coupling, low cohesion, too many responsibilities, and many more). Or, as author says, you are violating “basic architectural principle: design for a seperation of major system concerns. Keep application logic in one place (such as the domain software objects), keep database logic in another place (such as a seperate persistence services sybsystem), and so forth.”

What major benefits does the Information Expert give you?

“Information encapsulation is maintained, since objects use their own information to fulfill tasks. This usually supports low coupling, which leads to more robust and maintanable systems.”

“Behavior is distributed across the classes that have the required information, thus encouraging more cohesive ‘lighweight’ class definitions that are easier to understand and maintain. High cohesion is usually supported.”

So next time you are asking somebody to do something for you, see if he has the required information. If not, find somebody else that does. You want the job done well, right? Use an Information Expert for such a job.

ReferenceApplying UML and Patterns by Craig Larman, p221

It’s one of my favorite and most-referred to books. It’s one of 10 Books Every Java Software Engineer Must Own.