Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
Written for object-oriented software developers, this book describes an approach to creating software that is meaningfully involved in user's activities and takes the ultimate application into consideration. The author condenses best practices from object-oriented domain modeling into a set of basic building blocks, outlines a discovery process that implements an initial design then transforms it repeatedly, and addresses some design problems that arise in complex systems, larger organizations, and interactions with external systems and legacy systems.
The text offers a systematic approach to domain-driven design, presenting an extensive set of design best practices, experience-based techniques, and fundamental principles that facilitate the development of software projects facing complex domains.
Topics covered include:
- Getting all team members to speak the same language
- Connecting model and implementation more deeply
- Sharpening key distinctions in a model
- Managing the lifecycle of a domain object
- Writing domain code that is safe to combine in elaborate ways
- Making complex code obvious and predictable
- Formulating a domain vision statement
- Distilling the core of a complex domain
- Digging out implicit concepts needed in the model
- Applying analysis patterns
- Relating design patterns to the model
- Maintaining model integrity in a large system
- Dealing with coexisting models on the same project
- Organizing systems with large-scale structures
- Recognizing and responding to modeling breakthroughs
Review By: Mark Entner
06/01/2007This book helps you to develop a domain model--a representation of the business, stated in business language--for complex software projects. Because the domain model is stated in business language, it forms a “ubiquitous language” that can be used by both the business and technical teams to discuss the project.
The author stresses that a domain model must be created as part of an iterative process. The model will evolve as additional knowledge is gained about the business area. As developers write code based on the model, and as discussions with the business users continue, new realizations will arise. It is important that the model continue to reflect the current understanding of the project. Otherwise, the model will quickly become outdated and useless to the project.
The book starts with a discussion of the goals of domain-driven design, including processing knowledge, enhanced communication, and binding the model to the implementation. It then progresses to the fundamental elements that make up the domain model and how to identify them. The importance of refactoring the model is discussed and how effective refactoring can make the model even easier to refactor in the future. Finally, the author discusses options for maintaining the focus on the core elements in a large system design.
The author conceptualizes his points with numerous illustrations drawn from his years of experience as a designer and programmer on large object-oriented systems. These concrete illustrations make the concepts accessible, showing how the concept can be applied to a real-life project.
For instance, one of the common issues that arise on a development project (or at least on the ones that I've worked on) is that different people in the business area can use the same term to mean different things. As the team constructs the model, it will become clear that each business person has a different set of properties and/or behaviors that they think the object should have. After a few iterations, the team will find that they really have two objects with the same name. The team can then correct the model and update the language that they use. In the future, the team will be clear on which object is being discussed.
Whether you are just starting with domain-driven design or have implemented many systems using it, you'll find value in this book. The author has spent many years applying these principles and is not an "ivory tower" architect. His background includes programming, and his experience has allowed him to create a modeling process that works for everyone on the project—users, software architects, developers, and even managers.