In a previous job, my manager suggested use of a Translator pattern for converting data from a DataTable to objects. Basically, the Translator class had only static (i.e. class) methods so it was an aggregation of function calls. My initial approach was to implement constructors for each object that could take a DataTable row as an argument and create an instance that corresponded to the data.
He said that the Translator class had been suggested by Microsoft, and provided better modularity of code. I can see this point, but at the same time it seems like a very non-OO approach (although the Visitor pattern has similar characteristics).
Have any of you used this pattern, and what do you think of it? pros and cons?
From C2.Com it appears that the Translator pattern is a non-OOP implementation of the visitor pattern. It notes and the end of the article a few of the drawbacks, including the fact that in OOP semantics it is difficult to express (but not code), in other words it will work fine but may not make a lot of sense if you are using pure OOP for the rest of your code.