Which is the best practice to extend a .Net class with a helper class?

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I've been reading some post on how best to implement a helper class and I found that many people agree that the "helper classes" should be avoided.

"helper classes are an extraordinarily bad idea that should be avoided most of the time"

Post 1 - Are Helper Classes Evil?
Post 2 - Killing the Helper class, part two
Post 3 - How to Refactor the Helper Class

It seems that what they say makes sense, but how should I extend the functionality of a .Net class? which is the best practice to do this?.

For instance: I need to extend the functionality of the SerialPort class by adding a function to know if a port exists, with a common Helper Class I could do this:

VB

Public NotInheritable Class Helper

   Public Shared Function SerialPortExists(ByVal portNumber as Integer) As Boolean
      Dim ports As String()
      ports = SerialPort.GetPortNames()
      Return Array.Exists(Of String)(ports, Function(p) p.Equals("COM" & portNumber.ToString()))
   End Function

End Class

how can I accomplish this using best practices?

Posted 9-Mar-12 11:33am

cass3000

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Dave Kreskowiak · Answer 1 · 2012-03-09T13:47:00

Well, there really isn't a hard and fast rule for this.

My personal opinion is if this is the only method you have that helps SerialPort or you have a few methods related to it is to create a SerialPortHelper class and drop the method in there. This class should noly have methods in it related to SerialPort, NOTHING ELSE.

I only read the first post you linked but what it was generally referring to was creating a general purpose "catch all" class for miscellaneous methods that don't fit anywhere else. This is bad practice and I tend to agree.

I also don't feel the need to Inherit from the SerialPort class just to add a single method to it. If you've got more than that, feel free.