Question

I have a demo script which shows the question quite nicely so I will show the script, then ask.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Dog dog = new Dog() { Age = 4 };

        //This approach (version A)
        dog.DisplayDogYears();

        //Or this approach (version B)
        displayDogYears(dog);

        Console.ReadKey();
    }

    private static void displayDogYears(Dog d)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("The dog is {0} years old in human years.", d.Age * 7);
    }
}

public class Dog
{
    public int Age { get; set; }

    public void DisplayDogYears()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("The dog is {0} years old in human years.", Age * 7);
    }
}

There are 2 approaches which do the same thing (approach A and B). Are there any reasons to prefer one approach over another, in terms of scalability and readable code. I can see one advantage of the approach A is that this method is available to all instances of the Dog class (so nice and scalable and reusable and maintainable, however, when debugging it does mean I have to move between different classes (and VS has to jump to different files etc) instead of viewing everything in just one file.

Any thoughts?

Dave

Answer 1

I would prefer to have a method in the class Dog:

public int GetAgeInHumanYears()
{
    return Age*7;
}

and call this method from the main with a format string you like.