When using rAge(), which is not a real object, the variable is set directly because rAge() returns a reference. The object can do no checking of the value or do any representation reformatting. For many simple attributes, however, these are not horrible restrictions. Layering Layering is the primary technique for reducing complexity in a system. A system should be divided into layers. Layers should communicate between adjacent layers using well defined interfaces. When a layer uses a non-adjacent layer then a layering violation has occurred.
A layering violation simply means we have dependency between layers that is not controlled by a well defined interface. When one of the layers changes code could break. We don't want code to break so we want layers to work only with other adjacent layers.
Sometimes we need to jump layers for performance reasons. This is fine, but we should know we are doing it and document appropriately.
Code Reviews If you can make a formal code review work then my hat is off to you. Code reviews can be very useful. Unfortunately they often degrade into nit picking sessions and endless arguments about silly things. They also tend to take a lot of people's time for a questionable payback.
My god he's questioning code reviews, he's not an engineer!
Not really, it's the form of code reviews and how they fit into normally late chaotic projects is what is being questioned.
First, code reviews are way too late to do much of anything useful. What needs reviewing are requirements and design. This is where you will get more bang for the buck.
Get all relevant people in a room. Lock them in. Go over the class design and requirements until the former is good and the latter is being met. Having all the relevant people in the room makes this process a deep fruitful one as questions can be immediately answered and issues immediately explored. Usually only a couple of such meetings are necessary.
If the above process is done well coding will take care of itself. If you find problems in the code review the best you can usually do is a rewrite after someone has sunk a ton of time and effort into making the code "work."
You will still want to do a code review, just do it offline. Have a couple people you trust read the code in question and simply make comments to the programmer. Then the programmer and reviewers can discuss issues and work them out. Email and quick pointed discussions work well. This approach meets the goals and doesn't take the time of 6 people to do it.
Create a Source Code Control System Early and Not Often A common build system and source code control system should be put in place as early as possible in a project's lifecycle, preferably before anyone starts coding. Source code control is the structural glue binding a project together. If programmers can't easily use each other's products then you'll never be able to make a good reproducible build and people will piss away a lot of time. It's also hell converting rogue build environments to a standard system. But it seems the right of passage for every project to build their own custom environment that never quite works right.
Some issues to keep in mind: Shared source environments like CVS usually work best in largish projects. If you use CVS use a reference tree approach. With this approach a master build tree is kept of various builds. Programmers checkout source against the build they are working on. They only checkout what they need because the make system uses the build for anything not found locally. Using the -I and -L flags makes this system easy to setup. Search locally for any files and libraries then search in the reference build. This approach saves on disk space and build time. Get a lot of disk space. With disk space as cheap it is there is no reason not to keep plenty of builds around. Make simple things simple. It should be dead simple and well documented on how to: check out modules to build how to change files how to add new modules into the system how to delete modules and files how to check in changes what are the available libraries and include files how to get the build environment including all compilers and other tools
Make a web page or document or whatever. New programmers shouldn't have to go around begging for build secrets from the old timers.
On checkins log comments should be useful. These comments should be collected every night and sent to interested parties. Sources If you have the money many projects have found Clear Case a good system. Perfectly workable systems have been build on top of GNU make and CVS. CVS is a freeware build environment built on top of RCS. Its main difference from RCS is that is supports a shared file model to building software.