Should I use structure from a core library graphic toolkit in my domain?
- by Laurent Bourgault-Roy
In java (and many other programming language), there are often structure to deal with graphic element : Colour, Shape, etc. Those are most often in a UI toolkit and thus have a relatively strong coupling with UI element.
Now, in the domain of my application, we often deal with colour, shape, etc, to display statistic information on an element. Right now all we do with it is display/save those element with little or no behaviour. Would it make sense to avoid "reinventing the wheel" and directly use the structures in java.awt.* or should I make my own element and avoid a coupling to this toolkit? Its not like those element are going away anytime soon (they are part of the core java library after all), but at the same time it feel weird to import java.awt.* server side. I have no problem using java.util.List everywhere. Should I feel different about those class?
What would be the "recommended" practice in that case?
