Question

I really like being able to organization my objects like this where Source is it’s own object inside the Document object.

METHOD #1

Dim doc As New Process.Document()
doc.Source.Type = "URL"
doc.Source.Data = "http://myOtherDomain/MyOtherPage.htm"

<View #1 PasteBin Full Code>

However, is it a better practice to do something like this?

METHOD #2

Dim doc As New Process.Document()
doc.SourceType = "URL"
doc.SourceData = "http://myOtherDomain/MyOtherPage.htm"

<View #2 PasteBin Full Code>

The reason I ask is because it gets a little confusing with the first method because You get this:

Process.Document.DocumentSource and doc.Source

I think that in method #1, Process.Document.DocumentSource is redundant having Document twice and wish there was a way to hide that object from being selectable in the intellisense dropdown list by the user of the assembly.

But on the flip-side, if you have a LOT of properties, it seems better to be able to group them into sub-objects like method #1 does so you don’t have a hundred properties all listed in the Intellisense dropdown list.

Answer 1

The Law of Demeter says Method #2 is the way to go, given just those two options.

A third method could be providing the Source object instead of setting doc.Source.XYZ.

// C# -- don't know VB.Net
var source = new DocumentSource();
...

doc.Source = source;

A fourth method would effectively be constructor injection if the Source is required.

var source = new DocumentSource();
...
var doc = new Process.Document(source);