Ken Manheimer writes:
Dieter Maurer wrote:
It is a very good thing to have the specification very near to the implementation -- as a permanent guide to the implementor. It is even better, when big parts of the specification becomes part of the executable code (as is the case for Eiffel's pre- and post-conditions).
I'm not expert on eiffel or even interfaces, but my understanding having interface "specification very near to the implementation" is misleading, at best. The key thing is that there may be many implementations, all of which should be written to the same implementation - so you do not want the interface specification tied to any one of them. What about *ALL* of them.
Source documentation is essential for high quality software. A major part of the documentation is what each programming entity is obliged to do by contract. Therefore, I would like this information to be near the implementation. Dieter