God object

A god object (english God object) or God class (English god class ) refers to object- oriented programming, an object that " knows too much " or "too much doing ." The God object is an example of an anti-pattern.

The basic idea of structured programming is that large problems are broken down into a number of smaller problems to find solutions for them respectively. The release of small problems as it means the solution of the great problem. Therefore, each object must actually know everything about yourself, less about the other; well it has to solve its own problem only, not those of other objects.

Codes, which are based on God objects that do not follow this paradigm. Instead, much of the functionality of a program is stored in a single object. Because this object contains so much data and methods, its meaning is within the program encompasses almost everything ( god-like ).

The individual objects so do not communicate directly with each other, but are of the one God object dependent. Since the object is God so strongly referenced with the rest of the code, the maintenance of the program, respectively, of the object is very difficult, which meets the requirements of object-orientation and structured programming does not do justice.

The use of a God object within the object-oriented programming corresponds systematically to the inadequate use of subroutines, or excessive use of global variables in procedural programming.

While a god object is generally considered a characteristic of a weak program structure, it is common practice within limited environments such as the microcontroller in which a fast performance is more important than maintenance. However, since microcontrollers are becoming increasingly powerful, this argument is likely to play less and less importance.

Big hairy object

A similar, often synonymously used slang term is that of the Big hairy object. An essential difference is, however, argued that the Big hairy object, as opposed to the God object, does not assume control of the program, but is merely an overloaded interface.