97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

Chapter 59. Missing Opportunities for Polymorphism

Kirk Pepperdine

POLYMORPHISM IS ONE OF THE GRAND IDEAS that is fundamental to OO. The word, taken from Greek, means many (poly) forms (morph). In the context of programming, polymorphism refers to many forms of a particular class of objects or method. But polymorphism isn’t simply about alternate implementations. Used carefully, polymorphism creates tiny localized execution contexts that let us work without the need for verbose if-then-else blocks. Being in a context allows us to do the right thing directly, whereas being outside of that context forces us to reconstruct it so that we can then do the right thing. With careful use of alternate implementations, we can capture context that can help us produce less code that is more readable. This is best demonstrated with some code, such as the following (unrealistically) simple shopping cart:

public class ShoppingCart {
    private ArrayList<Item> cart = new ArrayList<Item>();
    public void add(Item item) { cart.add(item); }
    public Item takeNext() { return cart.remove(0);  }
    public boolean isEmpty() { return cart.isEmpty(); }
}

Let’s say our webshop offers items that can be downloaded and items that need to be shipped. Let’s build another object that supports these operations:

public class Shipping { public boolean ship(Item item, SurfaceAddress address) { ... } public boolean ship(Item ...