-
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 682
Commit
This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository.
list-ops: add hint of using static methods per #378
- Loading branch information
1 parent
ee75eae
commit aa82ee2
Showing
1 changed file
with
4 additions
and
0 deletions.
There are no files selected for viewing
This file contains bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change |
---|---|---|
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@ | ||
## Hints | ||
|
||
In Java it's considered best practice to use instance methods over class methods. However, there are conditions in which it is absolutely appropriate for a function to be `static`. Since classes in Java are closed for modification (i.e. you cannot add members to a class outside its definition like you can in other languages like Ruby or JavaScript), you cannot add new behavior to the class directly. What to do if you still want to define behavior for a given type? The idiomatic solution in this case is to write a utility method. | ||
Collections of these kinds of methods are often referred to as "utility classes". Examples of such classes from within the JRE include [Arrays](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/9/docs/api/java/util/Arrays.html) and [Collections](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/9/docs/api/java/util/Collections.html). | ||
In this exercise we want a List to have `map()`, `reduce()`, `filter()`, etc. methods. It doesn't, so we're using static methods. | ||
|
||
The `foldLeft` and `foldRight` methods are "fold" functions, which is a concept well-known in the functional programming world, but less so in the object-oriented one. See the Wikipedia page on folding for [general background](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_(higher-order_function)) and [signature/implementation hints](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fold_(higher-order_function)#Linear_folds). |