CompuServe Messages

I see what you mean. My usual approach to designing a program is to design data structures that match the way I am trying to solve the problem and write functions to manipulate them. The advantage of OO is that it encourages you to hide the data structures behind access functions so you can then change the "object" (which includes both the data and the access functions) and keep the interface to the rest of the program the same. I can think of quite a few programs I have had to maintain that I really wish had been designed like this. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England