Edge Cases 71: Libraries vs Collaborating Objects

Wolf Rentzsch talks to Andrew Pontious about software interface design, using jQuery’s Ajax functionality as an example of a “library” API style and NSURLConnection as an example of a “collaborating objects” API style. Plus: AFNetworking, and NSURLSession.

Links:

• jQuery
• jQuery « Wikipedia
• Shorthand Methods « jQuery API Documentation
• Low-Level Interface « jQuery API Documentation
• NSURLConnection Class Reference
• URL Loading System Programming Guide: Using NSURLConnection
• Caching and NSURLConnection « Black Pixel
• Quinn “The Eskimo!”
• ASIHTTPRequest is no more…. « Steve Streza, Google+
• Sam Marshall tweet: “@rentzsch it boils down to too much bloat and unnecessary boilerplate code for doing relatively simple things.”
• Sam Marshall tweet: “@rentzsch and as @ameaijou pointed out, it makes too many unnecessary abstractions: json/XML/http are data types to be handled, not requests”
• AFNetworking 2.0 « NSHipster
• NSURLSession Class Reference
• Punk rock « Wikipedia
• Class-responsibility-collaboration card « Wikipedia
• Sequence diagram « Wikipedia
• Facade pattern « Wikipedia
• NSTextView Class Reference
• NSCalendarDate Class Reference (PDF)
• Damien Katz tweet: “Invented a design pattern I call “simple code”. When I need the code to do something new I “modify it”.”

Rejected Episode Titles:

• This Is the NURLConnection One
• Involuntary Followup
• Everybody Should Use Time Machine
• Pluck the Remaining Files
• Shows How Much I Know About the Medical Profession
• The Elevator Pitch for JQuery
• Suspend Your Disgust
• A Bit of Knowledge Wikipedia Doesn’t Know
• That’s a Little JQuery Joke for You Two People in the Audience
• The Worse Case Scenario
• “Let Us Now Talk About NSURLConnection” “…Must We?”
• The Detritus Left on Shore After That Storm
• Designed Literally a Decade Ago
• A C Function Pointer, Which Nobody Likes
• Every Single Method Is Optional
• Not That I Recommend Diving In
• Google+ Is Still a Present Danger
• Talking Trash About AFNetworking
• A Big Ball of MUD
• I Will Take a String, Because F U NSURL
• What Really Helps Is Diagramming
• Don’t Use UML
• My Good Friend NSCalendarDate
• It’s Like You Don’t Know Me at All