David

>Most UML design tools have a strong concept of "packaging". It allows you to aggregate closely related classes into a single distribution unit. It makes great sense.
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>>An scx file is a natural and physical collection of things contained in that screen. A vcx for a compound object is also a physical collection of things contained in that object.
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>In VFP the scx/sct is the packaging for all of the items in a single form. It makes great sense.
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>>I object ;) to a vcx that contains unrelated things. I agree that there must be a class library, but it is often being used improperly, IMO. For example, putting all date calculation objects into the same vcx as the business objects makes no sense.
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>The design of the packaging of classes is nearly as important as the class designs themselves.
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>In VFP the vcx/vct is the packaging for closely related classes. It makes great sense.
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>>Before you arbitrarily group things together, I strongly advise you not group them at all.
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>That's a rather anarchistic statement. *g*
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>>For that matter, people are also doing things like putting a weekdays function into a payroll screen. Would you instantiate the payroll screen just to get that weekdays function? The weekdays function is not dependant on the payroll screen. Opting to keep the weekdays function outside of the payroll screen leaves that code available for every possible other purpose.
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>Those people just need to do a better job in the design of their packaging.
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>>If you put all baseclasses in a single vcx, those classes are all automatically included in your exe. I would put all baseclasses one per vcx, except that I use MaxFrame. Things I subclass from it do go in one class per vcx. It is very liberating! I always remember the class I want and never have to remember where it's hidden.
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>Yeah but in order to use ClassX of subsystemY you need to include ClassX.vcx and then you have to know (and include) all the other classlibs for the classes tha ClassX needs to operate correctly.

The project manager does that for you.

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>Me, I'd rather just put SubSystemY.vcx in my project and be done with it.
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>>I would like for there to be a way to organize functions and classes logically/virtually, but not a physical organization.

I agree with all of what you said. I would only clarify subsystemy.vcx as a particular class with component parts. Like any real world subsystem, such as a lan card. The lan card class becomes an entity unto itself.