I'm making an open source C# library for other developers to use. My key concern is ease of use. This means using intuitive names, intuitive method usage and such.
This is the first time I've done something with other people in mind, so I'm really concerned about the quality of the architecture. Plus, I wouldn't mind learning a thing or two. :)
I have three classes:
Downloader, Parser and Movie
I was thinking that it would be best to only expose the Movie class of my library and have Downloader and Parser remain hidden from invocation.
Ultimately, I see my library being used like this.
using FreeIMDB;
public void Test()
{
var MyMovie = Movie.FindMovie("The Matrix");
//Now MyMovie would have all it's fields set and ready for the big show.
}
Can you review how I'm planning this, and point out any wrong judgement calls I've made and where I could improve.
Remember, my main concern is ease of use.
Movie.cs
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;
namespace FreeIMDB
{
public class Movie
{
public Image Poster { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public DateTime ReleaseDate { get; set; }
public string Rating { get; set; }
public string Director { get; set; }
public List<string> Writers { get; set; }
public List<string> Genres { get; set; }
public string Tagline { get; set; }
public string Plot { get; set; }
public List<string> Cast { get; set; }
public string Runtime { get; set; }
public string Country { get; set; }
public string Language { get; set; }
public Movie FindMovie(string Title)
{
Movie film = new Movie();
Parser parser = Parser.FromMovieTitle(Title);
film.Poster = parser.Poster();
film.Title = parser.Title();
film.ReleaseDate = parser.ReleaseDate();
//And so an so forth.
}
public Movie FindKnownMovie(string ID)
{
Movie film = new Movie();
Parser parser = Parser.FromMovieID(ID);
film.Poster = parser.Poster();
film.Title = parser.Title();
film.ReleaseDate = parser.ReleaseDate();
//And so an so forth.
}
}
}
Parser.cs
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using HtmlAgilityPack;
namespace FreeIMDB
{
/// <summary>
/// Provides a simple, and intuitive way for searching for movies and actors on IMDB.
/// </summary>
class Parser
{
private Downloader downloader = new Downloader();
private HtmlDocument Page;
#region "Page Loader Events"
private Parser()
{
}
public static Parser FromMovieTitle(string MovieTitle)
{
var newParser = new Parser();
newParser.Page = newParser.downloader.FindMovie(MovieTitle);
return newParser;
}
public static Parser FromActorName(string ActorName)
{
var newParser = new Parser();
newParser.Page = newParser.downloader.FindActor(ActorName);
return newParser;
}
public static Parser FromMovieID(string MovieID)
{
var newParser = new Parser();
newParser.Page = newParser.downloader.FindKnownMovie(MovieID);
return newParser;
}
public static Parser FromActorID(string ActorID)
{
var newParser = new Parser();
newParser.Page = newParser.downloader.FindKnownActor(ActorID);
return newParser;
}
#endregion
#region "Page Parsing Methods"
public string Poster()
{
//Logic to scrape the Poster URL from the Page element of this.
return null;
}
public string Title()
{
return null;
}
public DateTime ReleaseDate()
{
return null;
}
#endregion
}
}
-----------------------------------------------
Do you guys think I'm heading towards a good path, or am I setting myself up for a world of hurt later on?
My original thought was to separate the downloading, the parsing and the actual populating to easily have an extensible library. Imagine if one day the website changed its HTML, I would then only have to modifiy the parsing class without touching the Downloader.cs or Movie.cs class.
Thanks for reading and for helping!
