Question

This is a design question. The design is pseudo-code and represents a small example but I may add a lot more methods, data, logic in the future.

In this example, I am considering two approaches. In the execute method below, should I return an immutable “data/bean/model” object with the output of the execute method or update the state of the BusinessLogic class.

The both accomplish the same goal, I want the result of execute and either the data should be contained in a bean container or in the internally in the BusinessLogic class.

I am kind of favoring just having the BusinessLogic class because SomeObject is just a useless bean that doesn’t do anything.

What are your thoughts?

public class SomeObject  {
    private String data1;
    private String data2;
}

public class BusinessLogic {

    private final IWebObject webObject;

    /* String data1; String data2 */    

    public BusinessLogic(final IWebObject webObject) {
        this.webObject = webObject;
    }

    // Approach 1        
    public SomeObject execute() {
        return new SomeObject();
    }

    or
    ...
    ...

    // Approach 2
    public void execute() {
        // Do something
        this.data1 = "data1";
        this.data2 = "data2";
    }

    public String getData1() { }
    public String getData2() { } 

} // End of the Class //

My only problem with approach 2 is that data1 and data2 won’t be immutable so. I can call execute arbitrarily and change those values.

Answer 1

If the main purpose of the method would be to execute and not return anything, I would personally go with your second approach and keep the data internally inside the BusinessLogic class.