README.md

Code Design Best Practices

At this point we're going to talk about the code design best practices.

Index

• Introduction
• Code Design Rules
  • Format
  • Naming
  • Code Documentation
  • Error Processing
  • Concurrency
    • Myths and misconceptions
    • Concurrency Defense Principles
    • Testing Threaded Code
  • Comments
  • Tools
    • Documentation
    • Naming and format
• Code design patterns
  • Introduction of code design patterns
  • Gang of four patterns
    • Creational Patterns
    • Structural Patterns
    • Behavioral Patterns
  • Model View Controller Pattern
  • Integration Patterns
    • Integration Styles
    • Messaging Systems
    • Messaging Channels
    • Message Construction
    • Message Routing
    • Message Transformation
    • System Management
  • Anti-Patterns
    • Software Design
    • Object Oriented programming
    • Programming
    • Methodological
    • Configuracion Management
• Agile metodologies implications
  • Agile Design
    • Agile Design Practices
    • Agile Design Philosophies
    • Design Throughout The Agile Lifecycle
  • TDD
    • The importance of testing
    • How to make a correct application design
  • BDD
• References

Introduction

Write a good code with a good design and format is very important for many reasons. A correct code design helps to improve the maintanability, and correct readability for anybody who have to work with the code. If all team's members write the code in the same way, and comment properly their methods and classes, will be easier for a new member or non familiarized with the code developer to understand it and he could work with it expending less time.

Code Design Rules

Format

• Tab correctly your code for improve the readability.
• Comment your code for tip to understand complex code or bucles.
• Don't use lines too larges.
• Don't use a lot of params in a method or functions. If there are a lot of params you should consider to use one class or object.
• Use with caution the copy & paste. When you copy a portion of code, think about if you can extract it to an method or class to reuse it.
• Read and follow the guide for your programming language.
• Split your code into short, focused units: if a method have a lot of lines, probably is better to divide in more methods to improve the readability and reusability of the code.
• Delete the variables not used anywhere, not only for performance reasons, also for readibility reasons.
• Use Framework APIs and Third-Party Libraries.
• Be consistent: Do similar things in similar ways. If you're developing a routine whose functionality resembles that of an existing routine, use a similar name, the same parameter order, and a comparable structure for the code body.
• Write portable code. Unless you have some compelling reason, avoid using functionality that's available only on a specific platform or framework.
• Use efficient data structures and algorithms. Simple code is more mantainable, you can combine mantainability with efficiency using the data structures and algorithms provided by your programming framework.
• Use UTF-8 encoding in all files (configure the ide or text editor).
• Replace tabs with spaces (Configure the ide or text editor).

Naming

Use the same naming style for the code variables, functions, objects and constants to improve the code readability and help to anybody can understand easily the source code.

Some of common recomendations independant of the programming language:

• Use english as common language for comments and naming for allow understand the code for everyone, no main where are they from.
• Use only letters (without accents or similar) and numbers and _ as separator.
• Not start the variables, classes or functions with numbers.
• The constants should be written in upper cases.
• The names should be descriptive about what the method, function or variable does.
• Variables should be in lower case.
• Functions and methods with lower case.

Each programming language have itself recommendations and best practices. It's important to use the standards of each language to improve the quality for your language.

• Java
• Python
• Javascript
• The twelve-factor app: The twelve-factor app is a methodology for building software-as-a-service apps. The twelve-factor methodology can be applied to apps written in any programming language, and which use any combination of backing services (database, queue, memory cache, etc).

Code Documentation

It's very important to document the code, to help to anybody to understand the code and how can use it. All programming languages allows document the code using comments in determinated format.

There are some considerations that you must have when you write the documentation:

• All classes and public methods and variables must be documented.
• Write usefull information about what a class or method does and how to use it.
• The functions and methods parameters should be included in the documentation with the possibles values and format expected. For example if is numeric, if is required or not, if is a text with some posible values...
• The posible return values must be included so, including the values returned when something's wrong
• If the function or method throws one or more exceptions is very important include it in the documentation.
• Use UTF-8 characters, don't use accents.
• Include the author of the comments. If one partner need to solve some dubts automatically know who develop it and can ask him for help.

Error processing

Is very important to have one unique strategy for processing the errors of your application. For this goal, there are some common tips that you can consider to process the errors correctly in all posible situations.

• Define the error detail objetive. It's not the same one error for an developer or sysops person than an error to show to the client. An error for a client should help it about what can do to solve or who have to contact.
• Define a common object error for all project. All methods or function must use it for return the error.
• Define a error code list for the errors.
• If is an error which can be shown to the client, use this code list with a internationalizable file for the descriptions.
• Log correctly the error with all information available about this cause and when it occurred.
• Use a common format for all error logs.

Concurrency

Write concurrent programs is hard, is easier write code within a single thread, or multithreading thats looks fine but fails when the system is placed under extress.

Concurrency is a decoupling strategy that help us to know the behaviour of our concurrent system and know what gets done from when it gets done. A single thread code is easier to understand and testing. Split what from when can improve the throughput and structure of an application.

There are other reasons to adopt the concurrency, some systems have response time and throughput requirements that need develop concurrent solutions, for example, for proccess a lot of data in the shortest time possible.

Myths and misconceptions

• Concurrency always improves performance. Not always the concurrency is the best option, sometimes is unnecessary.
• Design does not change when writing concurrent programs
• Concurrency incurs some overhead, both in performance as well as writing additional code.
• Correct concurrency is complex, even for simple problems.
• Concurrency bugs aren’t usually repeatable, so they are often ignored as one-offs instead of the true defects they are.
• Concurrency often requires a fundamental change in design strategy

Concurrency Defense Principles

• Single Responsability Principle
• Limit the Scope of data
• Use copies of data
• Threads should be as independant as possible
• Execution Models
  • Producers-Consumers
  • Reader-Writers
  • Dinning Philosofers

Testing Threaded Code

• Treat Spurious Failures as Candidate Threading Issues
• Get Your Nonthreaded Code Working First
• Make Your Threaded Code Pluggable
• Make Your Threaded Code Tunable
• Run with More Threads Than Processors
• Run on Different Platforms
• Instrument Your Code to Try and Force Failures
• Hand-coded
• Automatizated

Comments

Is a good practice to write code in a format easy to understand without have to add any comments. In most of cases if you write a clean and well structured code the comments wouldn't be needed. A comments should be a way to hide a bad code structure. So often may causes problems when you write comments about code pending to finish or errors in code pending to resolve and you forget update it when you correct the problem and this comments get on production and may be readed by the client causing embarrasing situations. For this reason is very important be very carefull with your comments and that your comments be really usefull and maintain it updated.

There are some considerations to have when you comment your code:

• Comments do not make up for bad code
• Explain yourself in code
• Good comments: some comments are necessary and beneficial:
  • Legal comments: This is the case for legal comments, for example copyright and authorship statements are necessary and reasonable things to put into a comment at the start of each source file.
  • Informative comments: Can be useful to provide basic information with a comment.
  • Explanation of intent: Sometimes can be useful include useful information about the implementation providing the intent behind a decision.
  • Clarification: Translate the meaning of some obscure argument or return value into something that's readable.
  • Warning of consequences: Sometimes is useful to warn about certain consequences.
  • TODO Comments: To explain why the funcion is pending to complete and what that function's future should be.
  • Amplification: A comment may be used to amplify the importance of something that may otherwise seem inconsequential.
  • Documentation
• Bad comments:
  • Redundant comments: Very obvious comments often the comments takes more time to read than the code itself
  • Misleading comments:
  • Journal comments: Not use comments as a version control that tools can do for you.
  • Noise comments: Sometimes you see comments that are nothing but noise. They restate the obvious and provide no new information.
  • Position markers: Sometimes developers like to mark a particular position in a source file.
  • Attributions and bylines: Is better use the source code control systems than uses comments than add noise to code.
  • Commented-Out code: When you left a old code commented the other developers don't know the reason and make confusion about why continues here and if is important and often this code is never deleted.
  • HTML comments: It makes the comments hard to read in the one place where they should be easy to read—the editor/IDE.
  • Too much information: Don’t put interesting historical discussions or irrelevant descriptions of details into your comments.

Tools

There are a lot of tools that help you to improve your code design for all programming languages. It's very recommended to use them for help to mantain the same format in all project and prevent errors.

Documentation

The documentation tools make it possible to generate documentation directly from your source code. Each programming language have its own tools, some of them are:

• Java: Javadoc
• Python: PyDoc
• Javascript: jsdoc toolkit
• Ruby: Rubydoc

Naming and format

There are a lot of tools to help to improve the code's quality and design. These tools allows to review the application code to find naming errors, variables not used, or to force to the developer to comment his methods and classes.

One of the most used tool for this goal is Sonar. There are more information about this tool in the Sonar Best Practices Guide.

Other tools that helps you depending on the programming language:

• Java: Checkstyle and PMD with maven plugin, allow to configure some configuration rules and test that your code is fine when you build your java application, preserving for deployment server errors. You should configure the same rules than sonar. Other useful tool is FindBugs. In our Java Best Practices Guide there are more information.
• Python: Pylint. For more information look into our Python guide.
• JavaScript: JSHint is a static code analysis tool for JavaScript. Also is recommended use a tool called Plato that is a JavaScript source code visualization, static analysis, and complexity tool and can be integrated with the JSHint results. You can find more tools and best practices in our Javascript Best Practices Guide.

Code Design Patterns

Introduction of code design patterns

The design patterns are solutions to common problems in the software development. They are defined by experienced programmers that seen a common ways to solve the similar problems.

A pattern is designed according to a more complete template, but in this chapter we are going to list the most common design patterns, and when we could/should use them.

Gang of four patterns

In 1994, four authors Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides published a book titled "Design Patterns - Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" which initiated the concept of Design Pattern in Software development.

These authors are collectively known as Gang of Four (GOF). According to these authors design patterns are primarily based on the following principles of object orientated design:

• Program to an interface not an implementation
• Favor object composition over inheritance

If you want more information you can visit the wikipedia page Gang Of Four

At this point we can define the following three categories of patterns:

NOTE: all the images used in this chapter are taken from the Wikipedia.

Creational Patterns

These design patterns provide a way to create objects while hiding the creation logic, rather than instantiating objects directly using new opreator. This gives program more flexibility in deciding which objects need to be created for a given use case.

• Abstract factory pattern

  • Definition

    Abstract Factory patterns work around a super-factory which creates other factories. This factory is also called as factory of factories. This type of design pattern comes under creational pattern as this pattern provides one of the best ways to create an object.

    In Abstract Factory pattern an interface is responsible for creating a factory of related objects without explicitly specifying their classes. Each generated factory can give the objects as per the Factory pattern.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • A system should be independent of how they are created, make up and represent their products.
    • A system must be configured with a family of products from several.
    • A family of related product objects is designed to be used jointly and is necessary to enforce this restriction.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Builder pattern

  • Definition

    Builder pattern builds a complex object using simple objects and using a step by step approach. This type of design pattern comes under creational pattern as this pattern provides one of the best ways to create an object.

    A Builder class builds the final object step by step. This builder is independent of other objects.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • If a class has an internal complex structure.
    • If a class has dependant attributes each other.
    • If a class uses other system objects that are difficult or inconvenient to obtain during its creation. You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Factory method pattern

  • Definition

    In Factory pattern, we create object without exposing the creation logic to the client and refer to newly created object using a common interface.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • When you want to create an extensible framework.
    • When you want to be a subclass instead of a superclass, that decides what kind of object must be created.
    • When you know when to create an object, but does not know the object type.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Prototype pattern

  • Definition

    It facilitates dynamic creation to define classes whose objects can create copies of themselves.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • The same as the definition.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Singleton pattern

  • Definition

    It allows a single instance of a class in the system, at a time that allows all classes have access to that unique instance.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • To store configurations.
    • To cache objects in memory.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

Structural Patterns

These design patterns concern class and object composition. Concept of inheritance is used to compose interfaces and define ways to compose objects to obtain new functionalities.

• Adapter pattern

  • Definition

    Adapter pattern works as a bridge between two incompatible interfaces. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern combines the capability of two independent interfaces.

    This pattern involves a single class which is responsible to join functionalities of independent or incompatible interfaces.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • When you want to use an object in an environment that expects a different interface offered by the object.
    • When you need a translation between the interfaces of several objects.
    • When an object must be used like an intermediary for a group of classes, and only is possible to know in execution time what class will be used.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Bridge pattern

  • Definition

    Bridge pattern is used when we need to decouple an abstraction from its implementation so that the two can vary independently. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern decouples implementation class and abstract class by providing a bridge structure between them.

    This pattern involves an interface which acts as a bridge which makes the functionality of concrete classes independent from interface implementer classes. Both types of classes can be altered structurally without affecting each other.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • When you want flexibility between abstraction and implementation of component, avoiding a static relationship between the two.
    • When the changes in the implementation should not be visible to the clients.
    • When you identify multiple abstractions and implementations of components.
    • When it is appropriate create subclasses, but you want to handle independently the two aspects of the system.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Composite pattern

  • Definition

    Composite pattern is used where we need to treat a group of objects in similar way as a single object. Composite pattern composes objects in term of a tree structure to represent part as well as whole hierarchy. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern creates a tree structure of group of objects.

    This pattern creates a class that contains group of its own objects. This class provides ways to modify its group of same objects.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • When there is a component modeled as a branch-leaf structure (or part-whole, or contained-container).
    • When the structure can have any level of complexity and be dynamic.
    • When you want to deal uniformly the structure of the component, using common operations in all the hierarchy.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Decorator pattern

  • Definition

    Decorator pattern allows a user to add new functionality to an existing object without altering its structure. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern acts as a wrapper to existing class.

    This pattern creates a decorator class which wraps the original class and provides additional functionality keeping class methods signature intact.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • When you want to make dynamic changes that be transparents to the users, without the restrictions that implies the creation of subclasses.
    • When they may introduce or remove components capabilities at runtime.
    • when there are features which vary independently, to be applied dynamically and can be arbitrarily combined on a component.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Facade pattern

  • Definition

    Facade pattern hides the complexities of the system and provides an interface to the client using which the client can access the system. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern adds an interface to existing system to hide its complexities.

    This pattern involves a single class which provides simplified methods required by client and delegates calls to methods of existing system classes.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    • To simplify the use of the complex systems providing an interface easier without delete the advanced options.
    • To reduce the coupling between the clients and the subsystems.
    • To introduce layers in the subsystems, providing facades to the subsystems groups.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Flyweight pattern

  • Definition

    Flyweight pattern is primarily used to reduce the number of objects created and to decrease memory footprint and increase performance. This type of design pattern comes under structural pattern as this pattern provides ways to decrease object count thus improving the object structure of application.

    Flyweight pattern tries to reuse already existing similar kind objects by storing them and creates new object when no matching object is found.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Only when this conditions are true:

    • The application uses a lot of identical objects or almost identical.
    • For all the almost identical objects, the different parts may be separated from the similar parts, allowing the sharing of the common parts.
    • The object groups almost identical may be replaced with a shared object when the differents parts of the state have been removed.
    • The application needs to differentiate between the almost identical objects in their original state.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Proxy pattern

  • Definition

    In proxy pattern, we create object having original object to interface its functionality to outer world.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when you need a reference more elaborate to an object rather than a simple reference. There are many different approaches:

    • Remote proxy: when you need a local representative for an remote object, or when reside in a different namespace.
    • Virtual proxy: when it is acting as a representative and delegate the creation of expensive objects.
    • Protector proxy: to establish the access rights to the real object.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

Behavioral Patterns

These design patterns are specifically concerned with communication between objects.

• Chain of responsibility pattern

  • Definition

    As the name suggests, the chain of responsibility pattern creates a chain of receiver objects for a request. This pattern decouples sender and receiver of a request based on type of request. This pattern comes under behavioral patterns.

    In this pattern, normally each receiver contains reference to another receiver. If one object cannot handle the request then it passes the same to the next receiver and so on.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • Exists a group of system objects that may respond potentially to the same types of messages.
    • The messages must be handled by one of the several system objects.
    • The messages follow the model "handle or forward", ergo, some events may be handled at the same level where are received or produced, while the others must be forwarded to a other object.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Command pattern

  • Definition

    A request is wrapped under an object as command and passed to invoker object. Invoker object looks for the appropriate object which can handle this command and passes the command to the corresponding object which executes the command.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • To provide support for undo commands, identification process and/or transformations.
    • To put in queue and execute commands in different moments.
    • To decouple the source of a request object that satisfies

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Interpreter pattern

  • Definition

    Interpreter pattern provides a way to evaluate language grammar or expression. This type of pattern comes under behavioral pattern. This pattern involves implementing an expression interface which tells to interpret a particular context. This pattern is used in SQL parsing, symbol processing engine etc.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • You need to interpret a simple language.
    • The resolution of a problem may be expressed in that language.
    • The efficiency do not be a fundamental aspect.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Iterator pattern

  • Definition

    This pattern is used to get a way to access the elements of a collection object in sequential manner without any need to know its underlying representation.

    Also, many languages implements this pattern as the normal way to walk into collections.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • To provide a uniform way and independent for the implementation, with the goal of walk the collection elements.
    • To allow the travel of multiple collections, allowing to the different clients to access simultaneously to the same collection.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Mediator pattern

  • Definition

    Mediator pattern is used to reduce communication complexity between multiple objects or classes. This pattern provides a mediator class which normally handles all the communications between different classes and supports easy maintenance of the code by loose coupling.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • There are complex rules to the object communication in a system.
    • You want simple and handling objects.
    • You want this object classes are redistributable and independent business model of the system.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Memento pattern

  • Definition

    Memento pattern is used to restore state of an object to a previous state.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when all conditions below are accomplished:

    • It must to take a snapshot of the object state.
    • This snapshot is used to restore the original state of the object.
    • A direct interface that reads the internal state of the object, violates the encapsulation principle, because reveals the internal functionality.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Observer pattern

  • Definition

    Observer pattern is used when there is one-to-many relationship between objects such as if one object is modified, its depenedent objects are to be notified automatically.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern generally when a system have:

    • At least one emitter message.
    • One or more message receptors that could vary inside an application or between applications.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• State pattern

  • Definition

    In State pattern, we create objects which represent various states and a context object whose behavior varies as its state object changes.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • The behaviour of the object depends on their state and the state changes frequently.
    • The methods have long conditional sentences that depends on the state of the object.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Strategy pattern

  • Definition

    In Strategy pattern, we create objects which represent various strategies and a context object whose behavior varies as per its strategy object. The strategy object changes the executing algorithm of the context object.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when:

    • You have many different ways of execute an action.
    • You don't know what approximation use until the execution moment.
    • You want to introduce easily new ways of achieve an action.
    • You want the code to be easily to maintain when you have to add behaviours.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Template method pattern

  • Definition

    In Template pattern, an abstract class exposes defined way(s)/template(s) to execute its methods. Its subclasses can override the method implementation as per need but the invocation is to be in the same way as defined by an abstract class.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern to:

    • To give an skeleton for a method, allowing that the subclasses redefine specific parts of the method.
    • To centralize parts of a method that are defined in all the subtypes classes, but always have a little different on each subclass.
    • To control the operations that is neccesary redefine in the subclass.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

• Visitor pattern

  • Definition

    In Visitor pattern, we use a visitor class which changes the executing algorithm of an element class. By this way, execution algorithm of element can vary as and when visitor varies. As per the pattern, element object has to accept the visitor object so that visitor object handles the operation on the element object.

  • Design

    

  • Applicability

    Use this pattern when converge all the following conditions:

    • A System contains a group of related classes.
    • Has to do some non trivial operations over some/all the related classes.
    • The operations must executed in a different way for the distinct classes.

  You can find more detailed explanation in this link

Model View Controller Pattern

This pattern separates a component or a subsystem in three logical parts (model, view and controller), doing easier to change each part. For this pattern we are not going to describe with an UML diagram, is more representative and intuitive the graph below:

At this point we are going to describe the three components:

• Model

  Model represents the application state. It can also have logic to update controller if its data changes.

• View

  View represents the visualization of the data that model contains.

• Controller

  Controller acts on both model and view. It controls the data flow into model object and updates the view whenever data changes. It keeps view and model separate.

Although originally developed for desktop computing, there are many implementations of this pattern in the web.

Early web MVC frameworks took a thin client approach that placed almost the entire model, view and controller logic on the server. In this approach, the client sends either hyperlink requests or form input to the controller and then receives a complete and updated web page (or other document) from the view; the model exists entirely on the server.

As client technologies have matured, the new frameworks allow to the MVC components to execute partly on the client.

You can find more information on this link

Integration Patterns

Enterprise integration is too complex to be solved with a simple 'cookbook' approach. Instead, patterns can provide guidance by documenting the kind of experience that usually lives only in architects' heads: they are accepted solutions to recurring problems within a given context. Patterns are abstract enough to apply to most integration technologies, but specific enough to provide hands-on guidance to designers and architects. Patterns also provide a vocabulary for developers to efficiently describe their solution.

We are going to list the integration patterns, only for searching purposes. It is a good practice to recognize all the integration patterns and know when to use them.

All the images in this chapter and more detailed information are in the http://www.enterpriseintegrationpatterns.com site, or in this book

Integration Styles

• File Transfer

  • Problem

    How can I integrate multiple applications so that they work together and can exchange information?

    

  • Solution

    Have each application produce files containing information that other applications need to consume. Integrators take the responsibility of transforming files into different formats. Produce the files at regular intervals according to the nature of the business.

• Shared Database

  • Problem

    How can I integrate multiple applications so that they work together and can exchange information?

    

  • Solution

    Integrate applications by having them store their data in a single Shared Database.

• Remote Procedure

  • Problem

    How can I integrate multiple applications so that they work together and can exchange information?

    

  • Solution

    Develop each application as a large-scale object or component with encapsulated data. Provide an interface to allow other applications to interact with the running application.

• Messaging

  • Problem

    How can I integrate multiple applications so that they work together and can exchange information?

    

  • Solution

    Use Messaging to transfer packets of data frequently, immediately, reliably, and asynchronously, using customizable formats.

Messaging Systems

• Message Channel

  • Problem

    How does one application communicate with another using messaging?

    

  • Solution

    Connect the applications using a Message Channel, where one application writes information to the channel and the other one reads that information from the channel.

• Message

  • Problem

    How can two applications connected by a message channel exchange a piece of information?

    

  • Solution

    Package the information into a Message, a data record that the messaging system can transmit through a message channel.

• Pipes and Filters

  • Problem

    How can we perform complex processing on a message while maintaining independence and flexibility?

    

  • Solution

    Use the Pipes and Filters architectural style to divide a larger processing task into a sequence of smaller, independent processing steps (Filters) that are connected by channels (Pipes).

• Message Router

  • Problem

    How can you decouple individual processing steps so that messages can be passed to different filters depending on a set of conditions?

    

  • Solution

    Insert a special filter, a Message Router, which consumes a Message from one Message Channel and republishes it to a different Message Channel channel depending on a set of conditions.

• Message Translator

  • Problem

    How can systems using different data formats communicate with each other using messaging?

    

  • Solution

    Use a special filter, a Message Translator, between other filters or applications to translate one data format into another.

• Message Endpoint

  • Problem

    How does an application connect to a messaging channel to send and receive messages?

    

  • Solution

    Connect an application to a messaging channel using a Message Endpoint, a client of the messaging system that the application can then use to send or receive messages.

Messaging Channels

• Point-to-Point Channel

  • Problem

    How can the caller be sure that exactly one receiver will receive the document or perform the call?

    

  • Solution

    Send the message on a Point-to-Point Channel, which ensures that only one receiver will receive a particular message.

• Publish-Subscribe Channel

  • Problem

    How can the sender broadcast an event to all interested receivers?

    

  • Solution

    Send the event on a Publish-Subscribe Channel, which delivers a copy of a particular event to each receiver.

• Datatype Channel

  • Problem

    How can the application send a data item such that the receiver will know how to process it?

    

  • Solution

    Use a separate Datatype Channel for each data type, so that all data on a particular channel is of the same type.

• Invalid Message Channel

  • Problem

    How can a messaging receiver gracefully handle receiving a message that makes no sense?

    

  • Solution

    The receiver should move the improper message to an Invalid Message Channel, a special channel for messages that could not be processed by their receivers.

• Dead Letter Channel

  • Problem

    What will the messaging system do with a message it cannot deliver?

    

  • Solution

    When a messaging system determines that it cannot or should not deliver a message, it may elect to move the message to a Dead Letter Channel.

• Guaranteed Delivery

  • Problem

    How can the sender make sure that a message will be delivered, even if the messaging system fails?

    

  • Solution

    Use Guaranteed Delivery to make messages persistent so that they are not lost even if the messaging system crashes.

• Channel Adapter

  • Problem

    How can you connect an application to the messaging system so that it can send and receive messages?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Channel Adapter that can access the application's API or data and publish messages on a channel based on this data, and that likewise can receive messages and invoke functionality inside the application.

• Messaging Bridge

  • Problem

    How can multiple messaging systems be connected so that messages available on one are also available on the others?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Messaging Bridge, a connection between messaging systems, to replicate messages between systems.

• Message Bus

  • Problem

    What is an architecture that enables separate applications to work together, but in a decoupled fashion such that applications can be easily added or removed without affecting the others?

    

  • Solution

    Structure the connecting middleware between these applications as a Message Bus that enables them to work together using messaging.

Message Construction

• Command Message

  • Problem

    How can messaging be used to invoke a procedure in another application?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Command Message to reliably invoke a procedure in another application.

• Document Message

  • Problem

    How can messaging be used to transfer data between applications?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Document Message to reliably transfer a data structure between applications.

• Event Message

  • Problem

    How can messaging be used to transmit events from one application to another?

    

  • Solution

    Use an Event Message for reliable, asynchronous event notification between applications.

• Request-Reply

  • Problem

    When an application sends a message, how can it get a response from the receiver?

    

  • Solution

    Send a pair of Request-Reply messages, each on its own channel.

• Return Address

  • Problem

    How does a replier know where to send the reply?

    

  • Solution

    The request message should contain a Return Address that indicates where to send the reply message.

• Correlation Identifier

  • Problem

    How does a requestor that has received a reply know which request this is the reply for?

    

  • Solution

    Each reply message should contain a Correlation Identifier, a unique identifier that indicates which request message this reply is for.

• Message Sequence

  • Problem

    How can messaging transmit an arbitrarily large amount of data?

    

  • Solution

    Whenever a large set of data may need to be broken into message-size chunks, send the data as a Message Sequence and mark each message with sequence identification fields.

• Message Expiration

  • Problem

    How can a sender indicate when a message should be considered stale and thus shouldn’t be processed?

    

  • Solution

    Set the Message Expiration to specify a time limit how long the message is viable.

• Format Indicator

  • Problem

    How can a message’s data format be designed to allow for possible future changes?

  • Solution

    Design a data format that includes a Format Indicator, so that the message specifies what format it is using.

Message Routing

• Content-Based Router

  • Problem

    How do we handle a situation where the implementation of a single logical function (e.g., inventory check) is spread across multiple physical systems?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Content-Based Router to route each message to the correct recipient based on message content.

• Message Filter

  • Problem

    How can a component avoid receiving uninteresting messages?

    

  • Solution

    Use a special kind of Message Router, a Message Filter, to eliminate undesired messages from a channel based on a set of criteria.

• Dynamic Router

  • Problem

    How can you avoid the dependency of the router on all possible destinations while maintaining its efficiency?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Dynamic Router, a Router that can self-configure based on special configuration messages from participating destinations.

• Recipient List

  • Problem

    How do we route a message to a list of dynamically specified recipients?

    

  • Solution

    Define a channel for each recipient. Then use a Recipient List to inspect an incoming message, determine the list of desired recipients, and forward the message to all channels associated with the recipients in the list.

• Splitter

  • Problem

    How can we process a message if it contains multiple elements, each of which may have to be processed in a different way?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Splitter to break out the composite message into a series of individual messages, each containing data related to one item.

• Aggregator

  • Problem

    How do we combine the results of individual, but related messages so that they can be processed as a whole?

    

  • Solution

    Use a stateful filter, an Aggregator, to collect and store individual messages until a complete set of related messages has been received. Then, the Aggregator publishes a single message distilled from the individual messages.

• Resequencer

  • Problem

    How can we get a stream of related but out-of-sequence messages back into the correct order?

    

  • Solution

    Use a stateful filter, a Resequencer, to collect and re-order messages so that they can be published to the output channel in a specified order.

• Composed Message Processor

  • Problem

    How can you maintain the overall message flow when processing a message consisting of multiple elements, each of which may require different processing?

    

  • Solution

    Use Composed Message Processor to process a composite message. The Composed Message Processor splits the message up, routes the sub-messages to the appropriate destinations and re-aggregates the responses back into a single message.

• Scatter-Gather

  • Problem

    How do you maintain the overall message flow when a message needs to be sent to multiple recipients, each of which may send a reply?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Scatter-Gather that broadcasts a message to multiple recipients and re-aggregates the responses back into a single message.

• Routing Slip

  • Problem

    How do we route a message consecutively through a series of processing steps when the sequence of steps is not known at design-time and may vary for each message?

    

  • Solution

    Attach a Routing Slip to each message, specifying the sequence of processing steps. Wrap each component with a special message router that reads the Routing Slip and routes the message to the next component in the list.

• Process Manager

  • Problem

    How do we route a message through multiple processing steps when the required steps may not be known at design-time and may not be sequential?

    

  • Solution

    Use a central processing unit, a Process Manager, to maintain the state of the sequence and determine the next processing step based on intermediate results.

• Message Broker

  • Problem

    How can you decouple the destination of a message from the sender and maintain central control over the flow of messages?

    

  • Solution

    Use a central Message Broker that can receive messages from multiple destinations, determine the correct destination and route the message to the correct channel. Implement the internals of the Message Broker using the design patterns presented in this chapter.

Message Transformation

• Envelope Wrapper

  • Problem

    How can existing systems participate in a messaging exchange that places specific requirements on the message format, such as message header fields or encryption?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Envelope Wrapper to wrap application data inside an envelope that is compliant with the messaging infrastructure. Unwrap the message when it arrives at the destination.

• Content Enricher

  • Problem

    How do we communicate with another system if the message originator does not have all the required data items available?

    

  • Solution

    Use a specialized transformer, a Content Enricher, to access an external data source in order to augment a message with missing information.

• Content Filter

  • Problem

    How do you simplify dealing with a large message, when you are interested only in a few data items?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Content Filter to remove unimportant data items from a message leaving only important items.

• Claim Check

  • Problem

    How can we reduce the data volume of message sent across the system without sacrificing information content?

    

  • Solution

    Store message data in a persistent store and pass a Claim Check to subsequent components. These components can use the Claim Check to retrieve the stored information.

• Normalizer

  • Problem

    How do you process messages that are semantically equivalent, but arrive in a different format?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Normalizer to route each message type through a custom Message Translator so that the resulting messages match a common format.

• Canonical Data Model

  • Problem

    How can you minimize dependencies when integrating applications that use different data formats?

    

  • Solution

    Therefore, design a Canonical Data Model that is independent from any specific application. Require each application to produce and consume messages in this common format.

Messaging Endpoints

• Messaging Gateway

  • Problem

    How do you encapsulate access to the messaging system from the rest of the application?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Messaging Gateway, a class than wraps messaging-specific method calls and exposes domain-specific methods to the application.

• Messaging Mapper

  • Problem

    How do you move data between domain objects and the messaging infrastructure while keeping the two independent of each other?

    

  • Solution

    Create a separate Messaging Mapper that contains the mapping logic between the messaging infrastructure and the domain objects. Neither the objects nor the infrastructure have knowledge of the Messaging Mapper's existence.

• Transactional Client

  • Problem

    How can a client control its transactions with the messaging system?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Transactional Client—make the client’s session with the messaging system transactional so that the client can specify transaction boundaries.

• Polling Consumer

  • Problem

    How can an application consume a message when the application is ready?

    

  • Solution

    The aplication should use a Polling Consumer, one that explicitly makes a call when it wants to receive a message.

• Event-Driven Consumer

  • Problem

    How can an application automatically consume messages as they become available?

    

  • Solution

    The application should use an Event-Driven Consumer, one that is automatically handed messages as they’re delivered on the channel.

• Competing Consumers

  • Problem

    How can a messaging client process multiple messages concurrently?

    

  • Solution

    Create multiple Competing Consumers on a single channel so that the consumers can process multiple messages concurrently.

• Message Dispatcher

  • Problem

    How can multiple consumers on a single channel coordinate their message processing?

    

  • Solution

    Create a Message Dispatcher on a channel that will consume messages from a channel and distribute them to performers.

• Selective Consumer

  • Problem

    How can a message consumer select which messages it wishes to receive?

    

  • Solution

    Make the consumer a Selective Consumer, one that filteres the messages delivered by its channel so that it only receives the ones that match its criteria.

• Durable Subscriber

  • Problem

    How can a subscriber avoid missing messages while it’s not listening for them?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Durable Subscriber to make the messaging system save messages published while the subscriber is disconnected.

• Idempotent Receiver

  • Problem

    How can a message receiver deal with duplicate messages?

  • Solution

    Design a receiver to be an Idempotent Receiver--one that can safely receive the same message multiple times.

• Service Activator

  • Problem

    How can an application design a service to be invoked both via various messaging technologies and via non-messaging techniques?

    

  • Solution

    Design a Service Activator that connects the messages on the channel to the service being accessed.

System Management

• Control Bus

  • Problem

    How can we effectively administer a messaging system that is distributed across multiple platforms and a wide geographic area?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Control Bus to manage an enterprise integration system. The Control Bus uses the same messaging mechanism used by the application data, but uses separate channels to transmit data that is relevant to the management of components involved in the message flow.

• Detour

  • Problem

    How can you route a message through intermediate steps to perform validation, testing or debugging functions?

    

  • Solution

    Construct a Detour with a context-based router controlled via the Control Bus. In one state the router routes incoming messages through additional steps while in the other it routes messages directly to the destination channel.

• Wire Tap

  • Problem

    How do you inspect messages that travel on a point-to-point channel?

    

  • Solution

    Insert a simple Recipient List into the channel that publishes each incoming message to the main channel and a secondary channel.

• Message History

  • Problem

    How can we effectively analyze and debug the flow of messages in a loosely coupled system?

    

  • Solution

    Therefore, attach a Message History to the message. The Message History is a list of all applications that the message passed through since its origination.

• Message Store

  • Problem

    How can we report against message information without disturbing the loosely coupled and transient nature of a messaging system?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Message Store to capture information about each message in a central location.

• Smart Proxy

  • Problem

    How can you track messages on a service that publishes reply messages to the Return Address specified by the requestor?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Smart Proxy to store the Return Address supplied by the original requestor and replace it with the address of the Smart Proxy. When the service sends the reply message route it to the original Return Address.

• Test Message

  • Problem

    What happens, though, if a component is actively processing messages, but garbles outgoing messages due to an internal fault?

    

  • Solution

    Therefore, use Test Message to assure the health of message processing components.

• Channel Purger

  • Problem

    How can you keep 'left-over' messages on a channel from disturbing tests or running systems?

    

  • Solution

    Use a Channel Purger to remove unwanted messages from a channel.

Anti-Patterns

An anti-pattern (or antipattern) is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive.

According to the authors of Design Patterns, there must be at least two key elements present to formally distinguish an actual anti-pattern from a simple bad habit, bad practice, or bad idea:

• A commonly used process, structure or pattern of action that despite initially appearing to be an appropriate and effective response to a problem, typically has more bad consequences than beneficial results, and
• A good alternative solution exists that is documented, repeatable and proven to be effective.

In this chapter we are going to list the anti-patterns. You can find more detailed information in the Wikipedia.

Software design

• Abstraction inversion

  Not exposing implemented functionality required by callers of a function/method/constructor, so that the calling code awkwardly re-implements the same functionality in terms of those calls.

• Ambiguous viewpoint

  Presenting a model (usually Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD)) without specifying its viewpoint.

• Big ball of mud

  A system with no recognizable structure.

• Database-as-IPC

  Using a database as the message queue for routine interprocess communication where a much more lightweight mechanism would be suitable

• Gold plating

  Continuing to work on a task or project well past the point at which extra effort is adding value.

• Inner-platform effect

  A system so customizable as to become a poor replica of the software development platform.

• Input kludge

  Failing to specify and implement the handling of possibly invalid input

• Interface bloat

  Making an interface so powerful that it is extremely difficult to implement

• Magic pushbutton

  A form with no dynamic validation, or input assistance such as dropdowns

• Race hazard

  Failing to see the consequences of events that can sometimes interfere with each other

• Stovepipe system

  A barely maintainable assemblage of ill-related components

Object-oriented programming

• Anemic Domain Model

  The use of the domain model without any business logic. The domain model's objects cannot guarantee their correctness at any moment, because their validation and mutation logic is placed somewhere outside (most likely in multiple places). Martin Fowler considers this to be an anti-pattern, but some disagree that it is always an anti-pattern.

• BaseBean

  Inheriting functionality from a utility class rather than delegating to it

• Call super

  Requiring subclasses to call a superclass's overridden method

• Circle-ellipse problem

  Subtyping variable-types on the basis of value-subtypes

• Circular dependency

  Introducing unnecessary direct or indirect mutual dependencies between objects or software modules

• Constant interface

  Using interfaces to define constants

• God object

  Concentrating too many functions in a single part of the design (class)

• Object cesspool

  Reusing objects whose state does not conform to the (possibly implicit) contract for re-use

• Object orgy

  Failing to properly encapsulate objects permitting unrestricted access to their internals

• Poltergeists

  Objects whose sole purpose is to pass information to another object

• Sequential coupling

  A class that requires its methods to be called in a particular order

• Yo-yo problem

  A structure (e.g., of inheritance) that is hard to understand due to excessive fragmentation

Programming

• Accidental complexity

  Programming tasks which could be eliminated with better tools (as opposed to essential complexity inherent in the problem being solved)

• Action at a distance

  Unexpected interaction between widely separated parts of a system

• Blind faith

  Lack of checking of (a) the correctness of a bug fix or (b) the result of a subroutine

• Boat anchor

  Retaining a part of a system that no longer has any use

• Busy waiting

  Consuming CPU while waiting for something to happen, usually by repeated checking instead of messaging

• Caching failure

  Forgetting to clear a cache that holds a negative result (error) after the error condition has been corrected

• Cargo cult programming

  Using patterns and methods without understanding why

• Coding by exception

  Adding new code to handle each special case as it is recognized

• Design pattern

  The use of patterns has itself been called an anti-pattern, a sign that a system is not employing enough abstraction

• Error hiding

  Catching an error message before it can be shown to the user and either showing nothing or showing a meaningless message. Also can refer to erasing the Stack trace during exception handling, which can hamper debugging.

• Hard code

  Embedding assumptions about the environment of a system in its implementation

• Lasagna code

  Programs whose structure consists of too many layers

• Lava flow

  Retaining undesirable (redundant or low-quality) code because removing it is too expensive or has unpredictable consequences

• Loop-switch sequence

  Encoding a set of sequential steps using a switch within a loop statement

• Magic numbers

  Including unexplained numbers in algorithms

• Magic strings

  Implementing presumably unlikely input scenarios, such as comparisons with very specific strings, to mask functionality.

• Repeating yourself

  Writing code which contains repetitive patterns and substrings over again; avoid with once and only once (abstraction principle)

• Shotgun surgery

  Developer adds features to an application codebase which span a multiplicity of implementors or implementations in a single change

• Soft code

  Storing business logic in configuration files rather than source code[8]

• Spaghetti code

  Programs whose structure is barely comprehensible, especially because of misuse of code structures

Methodological

• Copy and paste programming

  Copying (and modifying) existing code rather than creating generic solutions

• Golden hammer

  Assuming that a favorite solution is universally applicable (See: Silver bullet)

• Improbability factor

  Assuming that it is improbable that a known error will occur

• Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome

  The tendency towards reinventing the wheel (failing to adopt an existing, adequate solution)

• Invented here

  The tendency towards dismissing any innovation or less than trivial solution originating from inside the organization, usually because of lack of confidence in the staff

• Premature optimization

  Coding early-on for perceived efficiency, sacrificing good design, maintainability, and sometimes even real-world efficiency

• Programming by permutation (or "programming by accident", or "programming by coincidence")

  Trying to approach a solution by successively modifying the code to see if it works

• Reinventing the square wheel

  Failing to adopt an existing solution and instead adopting a custom solution which performs much worse than the existing one

• Silver bullet

  Assuming that a favorite technical solution can solve a larger process or problem

• Tester Driven Development

  Software projects in which new requirements are specified in bug reports

Configuration management

• Dependency hell

  Problems with versions of required products

• DLL hell

  Inadequate management of dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), specifically on Microsoft Windows

• Extension conflict

  Problems with different extensions to pre-Mac OS X versions of the Mac OS attempting to patch the same parts of the operating system

• JAR hell

  Overutilization of multiple JAR files, usually causing versioning and location problems because of misunderstanding of the Java class loading model

Agile metodologies implications

Agile Design

Exist strategies that are critical for scaling agile software development to meet the real-world needs of modern IT organizations. The Agile approach to design is very different than the traditional approach, and apparently more effective too.

Agile Design Practices

There is a range of agile design practices, see Figure 1, from high-level architectural practices to low-level programming practices. Each of these practices are important, and each are needed if your team is to be effective at agile design.

Agile Design Philosophies

• Agile designs are emergent, they’re not defined up front. Your overall system design will emerge over time, evolving to fulfill new requirements and take advantage of new technologies. Although you will often do some initial architectural modeling at the very beginning of a project during “iteration 0” this will be just enough to get your team going. Agilists don’t need to get a fully documented set of models in place before you may begin coding.

• Your unit tests form much of your detailed design documentation. With a test-driven development (TDD) approach to development you write a test and then you write just enough domain code to fulfill that test. An important side effect of this approach is that your unit tests not only validate your code, they also form the majority of your design documentation in the form of executable specifications.

• Design models need to be just barely good enough. You don’t need to model every single detail in your models, the models don’t need to be perfect, and they certainly don’t need to be complete. Remember the last time you coded from a design spec (if you ever did)? Did you really look at all the fine-grained details? No, because you were competent enough to handle the details yourself.

• Multiple models . Effective developers realize that each type of model has its strengths and weaknesses, therefore they need to apply the right model(s) for the job at hand. Because software development is complex you quickly realize that you need to know about a wide range of models in order to be effective.

• You typically only need a subset of the models. Although there are many modeling techniques available to your, the fact is that any given project team will only require a subset. Think of it like this: in your toolbox at home you have a wide array of screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, and so on. For any given repair job you will use only a few of the tools. Different jobs, different tools. You never need all of your tools at once, but over time you will use them in a variety of manners.

• Each model can be used for a variety of purposes. A UML class diagram can be used to depict a high-level domain model or a low-level design, not to mention things in between. Use cases can be used to model the essential nature of a process or the detailed system usage description which takes into account architectural decisions. Never underestimate how flexible you can be with models.

• Designers should also code. Whenever a model is handed over to someone else to code there is significant danger that the programmer will not understand the model, will miss some of its nuances, or may even ignore the model completely in favor of their own approach. Furthermore, even when hand-offs are successful you will discover that you need far more details in your models than if you had simply coded it yourself. In short, separating design from programming is a risky and expensive proposition. It is far more effective to have generalizing specialists on your team that can both design and code.

• Prove it with code. Never assume your design works; instead, obtain concrete feedback by writing code to determine if it does in fact work.

• Feedback is your friend. Never forget that you are a mere mortal just like everyone else on your team. Expect to receive feedback -- I suggest you actively seek it -- about your work and be prepared to consider it and act accordingly. Not only will your system be the better for it, you will likely learn something in the process.

• Sometimes the simplest tool is a complex CASE tool. When it comes to requirements I prefer inclusive tools such as paper and whiteboards, but when it comes to design I tend to lean towards sophisticated tools which (re)generate code for me.

• Iterate, iterate, iterate. With an iterative approach to development you work a bit on requirements, do a bit of analysis, do a bit of design, some coding, some testing, and iterate between these activities as needed. You will also iterate back and forth between working on various artifacts, working on the right artifact at the right time.

• Design is so important you should do it every day. It is critical to think through how you’re going to build something, to actually design it, before you build it. Your design efforts may take on the form of a sketch on a whiteboard, a detailed model created with a sophisticated modeling tool, or a simple test that you write before you write business code. Agile developers realize that design is so important that they do it every day, that design isn’t just a phase that you do early in the project before getting to the “real work” of writing the source code.

• Design for your implementation environment judiciously. Take advantage of features of your implementation environment, but be smart about it. Trade-offs are normal, but understand the implications and manage the risks involved. Every time you take advantage of a unique performance enhancement in a product (such as a database, operating system, or middleware tool) you are likely coupling your system to that product and, thus, reducing its portability. To minimize the impact of your implementation environment on your systems, you can layer your software and wrap specific features to make them appear general to their users.

• Document complicated things. If it is complicated, then document it thoroughly. Better yet, invest the time to design it so it is simple.

• Do not over document. You need to document your design, but you shouldn’t over document either. Remember, users pay you to build systems, not to document them. There is a fine line between under documenting and over documenting, and only through experience are you able to find it. Be as agile as possible when it comes to documentation.

• Don't get sidetracked by the data community. Unfortunately many within the data community believe that you require a serial approach to design, particularly when it comes to databases. This belief is the result of either not understanding evolutionary development or some misguided need to identify the "one truth above all else". Evolutionary database design techniques such as agile data modeling, database refactoring, and database regression testing work incredibly well in practice.

Design Throughout The Agile Lifecycle

Figure 2 depicts the generic agile software development lifecycle. For the sake of discussion, the important thing to note is that there is no design phase, nor a requirements phase for that matter, which traditionalists are familiar with. Agile developers will do some high-level architectural modeling during Iteration 0, also known as the warm-up phase, and detailed design during development iterations and even during the end game (if needed).

When a developer has a new requirement to implement they ask themselves if they understand what is being asked for. If not, then they do some just-in-time (JIT) "model storming" to identify a strategy for implementing the requirement. This model storming is typically done at the beginning of an iteration during the detailed planning effort for that iteration, or sometime during the iteration if they realize that they need to explore the requirement further. Part of this modeling effort will be analysis of the requirement as well as design of the solution, something that will typically occur on the order of minutes. In Extreme Programming (XP) they refer to this as a "quick design session".

If the team is taking a Test-Driven Development (TDD) approach the detailed design is effectively specified as developer tests, not as detailed models. Because you write a test before you write enough production code to fulfill that test you in effect think through the design of that production code as you write the test. Instead of creating static design documentation, which is bound to become out of date, you instead write an executable specification which developers are motivated to keep up to date because it actually provides value to them. This strategy is an example of the AM practice of single sourcing information, where information is captured once and used for multiple purposes. In this case for both detailed specification and for confirmatory testing.

When you stop and think about it, particularly in respect to Figure 2, TDD is a bit of a misnomer. Although your developer tests are "driving" the design of your code, your agile models are driving your overall thinking.

If you want more information you can read the book Disciplined Agile Delivery by Scott W. Ambler and Mark Lines.

TDD

Test-driven development (TDD), also called test-driven design, is a method of software development in which unit testing is repeatedly done on source code. The concept is to "get something working now and perfect it later." After each test, refactoring is done and then the same or a similar test is performed again. The process is iterated as many times as necessary until each unit is functioning according to the desired specifications. Test-driven development is part of a larger software design paradigm known as Extreme Programming (XP).

The importance of testing

Any IT solution that is implemented without the proper amount of testing performed throughout the project is a definite recipe for disaster. Testing is an ongoing process. It happens in development, it happens in the actual testing phase, it happens just prior to deployment and it happens post-deployment.

Without a well-thought testing effort, the project will undoubtedly fail overall and will impact the entire operational performance of the solution. With a poorly tested solution, the support and maintenance cost will escalate exponentially, and the reliability of the solution will be poor. Therefore, project managers need to realize that the testing effort is a necessity, not merely as an ad hoc task that is the last hurdle before deployment.

Clients do not want a costly and stressful problem with software that doesn't work, isn't ready on time, does not meet specifications, impacts customers adversely.

Releasing any software with so many bugs into it may affects the user experience which makes bad impact on quality impression of your company brand. They will remember about the delivered bad quality product, so there will be Importance of testing which makes vital.

The aim of software testing is to ensure good quality software. Good quality software means it has less defects or issues, it works well, and does what it needs to do.

When you do software testing as part of a development project, you are aiming to pick up and find all of the issues in the system before it is release to the end users as part of the project deployment.

The best results for a project occur when testing is planned and related activities commenced at the start of a project.

In summary, the importance of software testing can be attributed to three areas – less maintenance, increased user morale, and matching to requirements. It results in high quality software which should be something all of us are aiming for.

How to make a correct application design

We propose TDD Mantra: "red, green, refactor, repeat":

• Adding a test

  In the TDD process, each new feature begins with a developer writing a test. This test must inevitably fail because it is written before the feature has been implemented. If it does not fail, then either the proposed new feature already exists or the test is defective.

• Running all tests to see if the new one fails

  This validates that the test harness is working correctly and that the new test does not mistakenly pass without requiring any new code. The new test should fail for the expected reason.

• Writing code

  The next step is to write some code that will cause the test to pass. The new code written at this stage may not be perfect, however this is acceptable because steps made later will improve and hone it. It is important that the code written is only designed to pass the test.

• Running successful automated tests

  If all test cases now pass, the developer can be confident that the code meets all the tested requirements. This is a good point from which to begin the final step of the cycle - refactoring.

• Refactoring the code

  Now the code can be cleaned up (refactored) as necessary. By re-running the test cases, the developer can be confident that refactoring is not damaging any existing functionality. The concept of removing duplication is an important aspect of any software design.

• Repeat

  Starting with another new test, the cycle is then repeated to push forward the functionality.

BDD

Behaviour Driven Development is a synthesis and refinement of practices stemming from TDD (Test Driven Development) and ATDD (Acceptance Test Driven Development). Principally combines an idea about how software development should be managed by both business and technical interests insight. This idea was forged by Eric Evan with a term called Ubiquitous Language

• Business and Technology should refer to the same system in the same way - ItsAllBehaviour
• Any system should have an identified, verifiable value to the business - WheresTheBusinessValue
• Up-front analysis, design and planning all have a diminishing return - EnoughIsEnough

Ubiquitous language

It is hard to form a two-way communication between groups of people that operate in different business spheres without stumbling upon situations where both sides use the same language and even words, but imply a different meaning.

Ubiquitous language is a language created by developers and the business in order to discuss features and talk effectively in examples. It is not a technical language, but it is not a business language either; it is a combination of both. The key in the two sides becoming effective for joint communication lies in their ability to accept, to a certain extent, the points of view and understanding of each other. Ubiquitous language is an integral part of BDD. It is almost impossible to be effective with examples without striving for a shared language and understanding.

Focus in goals

A good business goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART).

Examples: As a Business customer I want to be able to create an announcement to show our new product line

Our potencial students should be able to search for courses

In order to keep of track movies that i want to see as a filmflix customer i can add movies to a queue

Focusing on users behaviour is the key concept behind usage-centered design and one of the most important concepts in BDD. Not only discuss examples of human behaviours and interactions, but we also discuss them from the point of view of their users. By focusing on the users and their behaviours, we understand who the system is built for and as a result, deliver software that meets the needs of all who use it. By analysing behaviours of people that will use the system, we constantly analyse different options and alternatives that would best meet their needs. In doing so, we are opened to different implementations and optimisations. Caring about behaviors not only helps us to deliver the software itself, but build the technical system to directly meet the needs of users.

Apply the "Five Why's" principle or Impact Mapping as a techniques to describe user stories.

Try to guide development bdd test through examples to illustrate behaviour.

How to write it

BDD does not have any formal requirements for exactly how these user stories must be written down, but it does insist that each team using BDD come up with a simple, standardized format for writing down. Dan North suggested a template for a textual format which has found wide following in different BDD software tools.

Example: Story: Create a new user In order to manage customer in my sytem As a site administrator I want to create, view and manage customer records

Scenario 1: Create a basic customer

Given I am logged into the site as an manager And I can see admin user view WhenI click the "Create New Customer" link Then I enter the following information email: beeva@rocks.com And I should see the following details on the screen: 'User was created'

Scenario 2: Error when try to create a user with invalid email

Given I am logged into the site as an manager And I can see admin user view WhenI click the "Create New Customer" link Then I enter the following information email: beevarocks.com And I should see the following details on the screen: 'Invalid user mail'

The scenarios are ideally phrased declaratively rather than imperatively

Benefits

• Organizing the conversation between developers, testers and domain experts.
• Helps focus on system’s behavioral aspects rather than focusing on testing your implementation
• Breaking the knowledge silos in distributed team
• Are we building the right product ?: Every member belongs to a team can check if they are building software in the right direcction.
• Helps developers to refactor without break main application features

Tools

These are a good set of tools to use, dependends on your environment

• Cucumber
• Behat
• Kahlan
• Behave
• Jasmine
• ....

References

• Design Patterns Wiki
• Enterprise Integration Patterns
• Object Oriented Design Wiki
• Test Driven Development (TDD) Wiki
• Behavior Driven Development (BDD) Wiki
• Clean Code (Book)
• Concurrency Wiki
• keepcoding
• agilemodeling

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BEEVA | 2016