Immaterial Culture

folklore, beliefs, values, ideologies, philosophies, customs, traditions, legends, idioms, humour, methodologies, music, science, the sublime & the ridiculous.

Apr 29, 2008 10:22pm

Analysis Pattern: Quantity

There are many cases where we want computers to represent dimensioned quantities: values such as six feet, or thirty kilograms. Usually these are represented as bare numbers, mainly because that is the best we can do in the limited type systems that languages give us. But using objects invites us to add new fundamental types whenever they add value, and having a specific type for dimensioned quantities adds quite a lot of value. This is particularly true when the dimensioned value is that of Money. Money is a special case of Quantity, but also one that perhaps the most widely used, as plenty of people are prepared to spend money to watch money.

Page 1 of 1