I too prefer this approach. Most of my object constructors take a list of pairs of attributes, check them for sanity, and set useful defaults if needed. They don't load or save or anything like that.

Instead, I use an external class that knows how to load, save, and instantiate many types of objects. In pattern language, this is a Factory.

It's especially nice because it aggregates the loading and saving into one place, conceptually unrelated to the objects themselves, which otherwise would have non-behavioral code mixed in with normal methods. It also allows the flexibility to change the serialization format almost trivially.

In reply to Re^2: Advice on OO Program structure & organization by chromatic
in thread Advice on OO Program structure & organization by yoda54

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