Re: _ref_extra

[JD Smith <jdsmith(at)astro.cornell.edu>]

"Pavel A. Romashkin" wrote:
> 
> Oh well. Just thought I'd ask. I got around it after all, although it
> took me extra 20 lines of code. Basically, I did not want to write
> get_property methods the old way anymore, inspired by David's complaint
> that then you have to revisit them every time you need to alter the
> object.  I have one get_property for everything now, and it works :-)
> Thank you,
> Pavel

And do you mind sharing it?  I once did this (in the pre-_REF_EXTRA
days) by changing GetProperty to a function, returning a structure with
keyword:value pairs, and chaining down the inheritance tree by
concatenating the structures returned.  I abandoned it when _REF_EXTRA
arrived. 

Despite the inconvenience, GetProperty as it is does have one thing in
its favor: if you just allow those fields to be "gotten" that you won't
mind keeping the same, you can isolate yourself from your own (OK, my
own) tendency to perform quick-fixes by digging deeper than you should. 
My recommendation: only add GetProperty keywords when you run into the
first time you actually *need* that value, and even then spend some time
convincing yourself that you're happy to fix that field in stone, no
matter what other changes the remainder of the class undergoes.

JD