Question regarding the "Tell, don't Ask" idea

Question

There is this famous quote that says

Procedural code gets information then makes decisions. Object-oriented code tells objects to do things. — Alec Sharp

The subject of the post is precisely about that.

Let's assume we are developing a game in which we have a Game where there is a Board. When facing the problem of deciding which methods are we going to implement on the Board class, I always think of two different ways:

The first approach is to

populate the Board class with getSize(), getPieceAt(x, y), setPieceAt(x, y, piece). This will seem reasonable and is what is generally found in libraries/frameworks. The Board class has a set of internal features that wants to share and has a set of methods that will allow the client of the class to control the class as he wishes. The client is supposed to ask for the things he needs and to decide what to do. If he wants to set all board pieces to black, he will "manually" iterate over them to accomplish that goal.

The second approach is about

looking for Board's dependent classes, and see what they are "telling" it to do. ClassA wants to count how many pieces are red, so I'd implement a calculateNumberOfRedPieces(). ClassB intends to clear all the pieces on the Board(set all of them to NullPiece, for example), so I'd add a clearBoard() method to the Board class. This approach is less general, but allows for a lot more flexibility on other aspects. If I "hide" Board behind an IBoard interface, and decide that I'd want to have a board with infinite size, doing in the first way, I'd be stuck, as I'd have to iterate over an infinite number of items! On the other hand, in this way, I could do fine (I could, for instance, assume all pieces are null other than the ones contained in a hashtable!).

So...

I am aware that if I intend to make a library, I am probably stuck with the first approach, as it is way more general. On the other hand, I'd like to know which approach to follow when I am in total control of the system that'll make use of the Board class -- when I am the one who is going to also design all the classes that'll make use of the Board. Currently, and in the future (won't the second approach raise problems if later I decide to add new classes that are dependent on the Board with different "desires"?).

Answer 1

The quote is really warning you away from data structures that don't do anything with the data they hold. So your Board class in the first approach might be able to be done away with and replaced by a generic collection.

Regardless, the Single Responsibility Principle still applies, so you need to treat the second approach with caution.

What I would do is invoke YAGNI (you aren't gonna need it) and try to see how far I could go using a generic collection rather than a Board class. If you find that later you do need the Board class its responsibility will likely be much more clear by then.