[jdom-interest] About the Text class

[bob mcwhirter]

> Now that this class seems to be adopted, why not leveraging its capabilities.
> 
> First, the JDOM code is full of instanceof operator, checking for
> particular content.  Why not creating a base class
> that will be the root of the other? Then, a "int getType()" method
> will be easier and faster than the use of instanceof.
> a sanity check method can then be written like "return
> type=BaseClass.ELEMENT||BaseClass.Attribute".

Yeahbut, that's also a sign of non-OO practices.  Let polymorphism
work to your advantage.  Don't check the type, cast, and call
a method that has the same name in both classes (ie, "getParent()"),
instead, define the method-in-question in the base class, and
work with instance of the base class (ie, Node::getParent()).

Else, we're looking at a hideous DOMish API.  Let's leverage
our truly polymorphic types and abstract types/interfaces to
promote clean programming practices both within the JDOM
sources and the sources of those using JDOM.

	-bob