VB.NET - Misusing instance variables? - vb.net

Question

Please take a look at the code below:
Public Class A
Public person1 As Person
End Class
Public Class B
Inherits A
Public Function CheckGender() As Boolean
If person1._Gender = "M" Then
CheckGender = True
End If
End Function
End Class
Public Class C
Inherits B
Public Function CheckAge() As Boolean
If person1._Age > 30 Then
CheckAge = True
End If
End Function
End Class
Public Class D
Inherits C
Public Sub SomeMethod()
Dim list As List(Of Person) = New List(Of Person)
Dim p1 As New Person("Ian", "M", 31)
Dim p2 As New Person("Susan", "F", 20)
Dim p3 As New Person("Mark", "M", 22)
list.Add(p1)
list.Add(p2)
list.Add(p3)
For Each Person As Person In list
person1 = Person
If CheckAge() And CheckGender() Then
'Do something
End If
Next
End Sub
Public Shared Sub Main()
Dim d As New D
d.SomeMethod()
End Sub
End Class
Public Class Person
Public _Name As String
Public _Gender As String
Public _Age As String
Public Sub New(ByVal Name As String, ByVal Gender As String, ByVal Age As Integer)
_Name = Name
_Gender = Gender
_Age = Age
End Sub
End Class
c.SomeMethod loops through three persons and does two checks: b.CheckGender and c.CheckAge. CheckGender and CheckAge use an instance variable from the superclass A.
The code in the live environment loops through 100,000 records daily in a database and deletes those where CheckGender and CheckAge are both true. Is it a bad design choice to use instance variables in this scenario? I was always taught to use local variables. I would expect the Person object to be passed to CheckGender and CheckAge on each loop. Or does it really not matter?
Please note that the above code is a hypothetical example. CheckGender and CheckAge are complex functions in the actual application.

Answer 1

As long as CheckGender and CheckAge are not accessing any private, protected or internal member of the classes in hierarchy, and are public functions, and their logic is the same for any instance, being A, B, or C, it is a better design to have these methods in another class. Make them static if possible. You can have them accept the most general implementation of your classes (A for instance) that allows checking either the age or gender. Taken from your code, you can even pass the Person property instead of using any of the A, B and C classes.
Use of inheritance in the above case and such logic is permitted though, as long as you need to do any or all of the following:
Conform to a specific interface or base class, that A, B and C classes have to implement/extend, and that interface or base class provides the CheckGender and CheckAge methods. This can be the only solution if you pass your objects to 3rd party API, that accepts the base class/interface as an argument and internally calls the check methods.
Here is example in C#:
public static class CheckUtil
{
public static bool CheckAgeOfPerson(Person p)
{
return p.Age > 30;
}
public static bool CheckAgeOfObject(A obj)
{
// NOTE: obj.person1 must be accessible - by being either public or internal.
// If this class is in another assembly, internal is not useful
return CheckAgeOfPerson(obj.person1);
}
}
A objA = ...;
B objB = ...;
C objC = ...;
CheckUtil.CheckAgeOfObject(objA);
CheckUtil.CheckAgeOfObject(objB);
CheckUtil.CheckAgeOfObject(objC);
CheckUtil.CheckAgeOfPerson(objA.person1);
CheckUtil.CheckAgeOfPerson(objB.person1);
CheckUtil.CheckAgeOfPerson(objC.person1);
Provide specific implementation to the classes. If you have to some logic in CheckAge for instances of A, but either completely different validation for instances of B, or a combination of the existing and some new logic in C, then inheritance is your friend. Still, if that is the case, I'd prefer exposing the CheckGender and CheckAge to interface and call them via the interface. That way, inheritance is valid, but not mandatory, as long the interface is satisfied.
here is an example in C#:
public interface IGenderCheckable
{
bool CheckGender();
}
public interface IAgeCheckable
{
bool CheckAge();
}
public class A : IAgeCheckable, IGenderCheckable
{
public virtual bool CheckGender()
{
return this.person1.Gender.Equals("M");
}
public virtual bool CheckAge()
{
return this.person1.Age > 30;
}
}
public class B : A
{
public override bool CheckAge()
{
// combine custom logic with new logic
return this.person1.Age < 0 || base.CheckAge();
}
}
For complex scenarios, a combination of both approaches might be also used (of course for far more complex cases than age and gender checks):
public class A : IAgeCheckable, IGenderCheckable
{
...
}
public static class CheckUtil
{
public static bool CheckAge(IAgeCheckable obj)
{
return obj.CheckAge();
}
public static bool CheckGender(IGenderCheckable)
{
return obj.CheckGender();
}
}
About usage of instance variables vs local variables - there is a drawback in performance of using instance variables in .NET especially when they are value types. Use of local member that is int _someIntMember for example gets translated to this._someIntMember - which in turn calls the heap to get the this object, and then accesses its _someIntMember member. Having the member as a local variable, puts its value in the stack, and reads it from there without the unnecessary roundtrip trough the heap. Moreover, the stack is faster than the heap.
However, I cannot say whether too much heap usage is an abuse of it, neither a misuse of local variables when they are used too much. This depends on the performance needed, and the complexity of code. Sometimes local variables make the code more-readable, but if too many, you could easily forget what each one was (and that can be more serious issue than the negligent performance gain). So it is a matter of style and necessity.

Answer 2

In case you're interested in "fixing" your code to make Person a Property rather than a field, change the implementation of Class A as follows:
Public Class A
Public Property Person1 As Person
Public Overridable Function ComputeAge() As Integer
Return Person1.Age
End Function
End Class
The benefit here is you have the ability to add additional abstractions over getting and setting this property down the road if you need to. The compiler will generate a hidden private backing field for the auto property. You would still access the Person1 from any implementing classes:
Public Class B
Inherits A
Public Overrides Function ComputeAge() As Integer
Return MyBase.Person1.Age.AddYears(1)
End Function
End Class