A Big Hairy Object (BHO) is a slang term used to describe an object in software programming that has so many properties and methods that it performs the bulk of system processes all on its own. A BHO would have, at its extreme, a million properties and methods with no structure, and altogether several million lines of code. The term is used less frequently than the anti-pattern God object.
When dealing with complex business processes, this is generally frowned upon as it violates object oriented programming design principles. BHOs typically start small and simple, but build up over years of evolution when refactoring is not a standard practice of those who maintain it.
|
