What is the recommended size if the ObjectScript class?

Question

Question

Evgeny Shvarov · 20 hr ago

#ObjectScript #HealthShare #InterSystems IRIS for Health #Health Connect #InterSystems IRIS

Hi Developers!

Currently I have 2000+ lines in a class, and I think it's a lot already? What are the best practices?

if 10K lines OK? How do you cope with it? Please share?

Product version: IRIS 2025.3

Discussion (8)4

Log in or sign up to continue

Eduard Lebedyuk · 16 hr ago

I think you might want to track these numbers instead:

Number of properties. $lb is list, so the larger the number of elements in a list the longer the time to get to the last element. Also larger larger lists exhaust the global buffer faster, so they might be less optimal.
Method size in sloc. Ideally, your class shouldn't have methods spanning hundreds (thousands) of lines.

I wouldn't worry about total class length, but rather the number of individual elements and method sizes.

There's also class limits docs, but if you hit them, you probably have an issue already.

2 0

score 0 · Answer 1 · 2026-02-12T12:58:32-05:00

Evgeny Shvarov · 15 hr ago

Thank you, @Eduard Lebedyuk ! Class limits doc is very helpful

0 0

score 0 · Answer 2 · 2026-02-12T13:20:22-05:00

My personal approach would be:

separate instance code from Class Methods This covers all properties and especially Calculated Properties Or simplified, all code tied to data storage
Class Methods work on referenced objects but have no dedicated data store (i%...) Simplified, they are code-only components.
Class Methods could be bundled in several Classes.

score 0 · Answer 3 · 2026-02-12T19:18:34-05:00

Evgeny Shvarov · 9 hr ago

Interesting! Any examples?

0 0

score 0 · Answer 4 · 2026-02-12T13:49:57-05:00

Why is there so many lines in this class ?

From code quality point of view, a class exceeding 500 lines is usually considered a candidate for refactoring.

Is the code generated ?

score 0 · Answer 5 · 2026-02-12T19:18:09-05:00

Why is there so many lines in this class ?

A lot of logic.

From code quality point of view, a class exceeding 500 lines is usually considered a candidate for refactoring.

So, 1000+ maybe is already a bit off? Is there any industry standard? Or it's difficult ot cope for a human? )

Is the code generated ?

May I not answer on this question? :)

score 0 · Answer 6 · 2026-02-12T16:39:07-05:00

Scott Roth · 12 hr ago

And I had thought I had set a record with the number of lines I had in a process....

0 0

score 0 · Answer 7 · 2026-02-13T00:13:30-05:00

Hi Evgeny!

First, kudos on developing such complex logic; no easy feat! As far as the question itself, it's a good question, but leading down the wrong line of thought.

The question shouldn't be "how big can I make this one class," but rather, "how is this logic and code going to be maintained." Having a class with so many lines of code, while possible, will be a nightmare to extend and maintain.

For example, say you're working on adding functionality and discover a bug in the code already in production. As a monolithic design, are you going to remove your not-ready-for-production feature, fix the bug, promote to live, and add the feature code back? What if you bring on another developer? Depending on server side/client side change control, you may end up limiting to one developer being able to work on the code at any given time. And what about multi threading and bottlenecks identified during testing and live processing? A single class will already likely need refactoring to deal with these sorts of things.

There is a reason ISC is implementing IPM and "micro services" as a strategy moving forward. The less monolithic, the better in the long run (within reason, as you don't want code scattered everywhere for no reason).

Look at options to break things up a bit. You'll thank yourself later!