Domain-Driven Design Pattern Summaries
Interested in accelerating software project that have to deal with complicated domains?
Of course many things can put a project off course, bureaucracy, unclear objectives, lack of resources, to name a few, but it is the approach to design that largely determines how complex software can become. When complexity gets out of hand, the software can no longer be understood well enough to be easily changed or extended. By contrast, a good design can make opportunities out of those complex features.
Some of these design factors are technological, and a great deal of effort has gone into the design of networks, databases, and other technical dimension of software. Books have been written about how to solve these problems. Developers have cultivated their skills.
Yet the most significant complexity of many applications is not technical. It is in the domain itself, the activity or business of the user. When this domain complexity is not dealt with in the design, it won’t matter that the infrastructural technology is well-conceived. A successful design must systematically deal with this central aspect of the software.
It has been a while since I have visited the DDD website and apparently both the pattern summaries and the managers tour guide have been added. Lately I have spend a fair deal of time on bringing DDD to the discussion table, and noticed that my Java oriented developer buddies where able to grasp the concepts straight away. The Microsofters on the other hand are having a difficult time stepping away from the DNA like view on software projects (good old COM) where each project its domain and application logic is crippled to fit in a business logic layer (remember the Customer CustomerManager or Customers classes?). But that is all good… I agree that applications should be logically separated into partitions (tiers) but not in the way it was done because of technology restrictions in the COM era.
Developers get your hands on the Patterns Summaries. Drop me an email with your thoughts afterwards. Manager should take a glimps at the less technical and more organizational information in the Managers Tour.