Value objects

Christoph Kappel · · , · Reading time 1 minute

Here, whenever we are talking about the general topic value objects, sooner or later we end up in a discussion about functionality.

What kind of functionality should be in a value object and what not? &

One of the easiest examples is probably unit types. What you really want is to have some basic type for units like distances, weights and so on. And when using them, the most beneficial handling would be, if they encapsulate all logic related to basic arithmetic:

Kilometer distanceInKilometer = 1;
Meter distanceInMeter = 5;

Kilometer totalDistance = distanceInMeter + distanceInKilometer;

So why do even mention this contrived example? I stumbled upon Manifold framework and along other useful things like @Jailbreak to access private methods and #define/#ifdef, it comes with a really cool way to handle unit types.

I know strictly speaking this has isn’t even closely related to DDD, but it is still cool and hey, clickbait-y!