Method to go in which class?

Question

I have 2 classes, player and game and a method called get_player_games($player_id). Which class does this method belong to?

I seem to run into this problem a bit, where I'm not 100% sure which class the method should go in. Is it just a matter of preference?

Thanks

Answer 1

It's a typical cross-reference sort of situation -- to be completely objective, it can go in either class. It really is a matter of preference, assuming that a player can have multiple games and a game can be associated with multiple players.

That said, I've always approached it philosophically from the way you're inclined to name the method in the first place -- get_player_games() sounds like you're interested in the games for a particular player. The player is the subject of interest (based on the limited English-style grammar of the method name), the games happened to be the detail associated with that. If you had said get_game_players() or get_games_for_player(), then I would say that the games are the subject of interest, not the player.

Obviously, I'm biased by the noun you chose first (again, from a biased English grammar point of view), but since you can argue that the method belongs in either class, it's the only possible basis to use in such a case.

Again, it's somewhat of an arbitrary decision, but I've always been inclined to follow what the method naming rhetorically suggests to me about in which class it belongs.