the Software View: Quilting software from design patterns
Welcome back, gentle reader. Straight from the rumor mill, I heard this
little tidbit. Microsoft is going to purchase the entire Whidbey
Island, here in Washington state. Since it is already a Naval Air
Station, Microsoft can have its own private airport. They can add
private jets to the arsenal of shuttle vans that are currently scurrying
around the Microsoft corporate campus. Numerous Microsoft senior
executives live on Whidbey Island, and they are currently beginning
construction for several golf courses.
Now, dear reader, on with this week's episode of "the Software View"!
The book, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented
Software, was written by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and
John Vlissides. The authors are sometimes referred to as Gamma et. al.,
GOF, or GoF (Gang of Four). Design Patterns are a pool of collective
expertise that expert designers use in their designs. It is important
to use design patterns to solve a problem, not to introduce complexity.
There are elements of commonality to problems and design solutions to
them.
It has been shown that all well designed object-oriented systems exploit
recurring design structures that exhibit good abstraction, flexibility,
modularity and elegance. Such design structures contain valuable design
knowledge that needs to be remembered and reused. This idea has been
formalized in terms of the idea of design patterns.
A design pattern captures a component of a complete design that has been
seen experimentally to recur in solutions to problems and can be used
not only to construct designs but also to communicate knowledge about
these solutions. Design patterns can also be used as elements of a
pattern language, which provides a way of communicating design level
information, in the same kind of way that a programming language
communicates code level information.
This is another boon for maintainability. If an application makes use
of design patterns that are catalogued and known widely, it is much
easier for a maintainer (who we presume is knowledgeable about design
patterns) to comprehend the design of the system. This makes it easier
for that person to make bug fixes or amendments to the program without
violating the basic design and/or structure.
GoF write, "Design patterns describe simple and elegant solutions to
specific problems in object-oriented software design. Design patterns
capture solutions that have developed and evolved over time. Hence they
aren't the designs people tend to generate initially. They reflect
untold redesign and recoding as developers have struggled for greater
reuse and flexibility in their software. Design patterns capture these
solutions in a succinct and easily applied form. Design patterns might
take a little more work than ad hoc solutions. But the extra effort
invariably pays dividends in increased flexibility and reusability.
All well-structured object-oriented architectures are full of patterns.
Indeed, one of the ways to measure the quality of an object-oriented
system is to judge whether or not its developers have paid careful
attention to the common collaborations among its objects. Focusing on
such mechanisms during a system's development can yield an architecture
that is smaller, simpler, and far more understandable than if these
patters are ignored. The importance of patterns in crafting complex
systems has been long recognized in other disciplines.
Microsoft's COM (component object model) uses the Broker design pattern
as its architectural construct. Clients do not access the server
directly, but use proxies instead. Proxies have the same interface as
the server objects. Thus, the client doesn't see any of the work
necessary to manage the distributed communication. The server has a
stub to match the client's proxy.
Mika Kujala writes, "Because of its full portability, clean
object-oriented abstractions and a number of standard packages, Java can
readily be adopted as the implementation language for design pattern
based solutions. The Java platform supports the design patterns
principles very well, as it supports inheritance and interfaces. The
Java interface/implementation model is extremely useful in a design
patterns context."
The Chain of Responsibility pattern is a Behavioral design pattern. The
intent of the Chain of Responsibility design pattern is to avoid
coupling the sender of a request to its receiver by giving more than one
object a chance to handle the request. Chain the receiving objects and
pass the request along the chain until an object handles it. Sun
Microsystems' Java AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit or Abstract Windowing
Toolkit) 1.0 old, containment-based event model adheres to the Chain of
Responsibility design pattern. When the user acts on a Component --
clicking it or pressing the Return key, for example -- an Event object
is created. The AWT event-handling system passes the Event up the
Component hierarchy, giving each Component a chance to react to the
event before the platform-dependent code that implements the Component
fully processes it. Also, any calls to a Java class' super class adhere
to the Chain of Responsibility design pattern.
The Command pattern is a Behavioral design pattern. The intent of the
Command design pattern is to encapsulate a request as an object, thereby
letting you parameterize clients with different requests. Sun
Microsystems' Java adheres to the Command design pattern. Java supports
method name overloading so that multiple methods can share the same
name. For example, suppose you are writing a class that can render
various types of data (strings, integers, and so on) to its drawing
area. You need to write a method that knows how to render each data
type. In other languages, you have to think of a new name for each
method, for example, drawString, drawInteger, drawFloat, and so on. In
Java, you can use the same name for all of the drawing methods but pass
a different type of parameter to each method. So, in your data
rendering class, you can declare three methods named draw, each of which
takes a different type of parameter.
The Composite pattern is a Structural design pattern. The intent of the
Composite design pattern is to compose objects into tree structures to
represent part-whole hierarchies. The Composite design pattern lets
clients treat individual objects and compositions of objects uniformly.
Sun Microsystems' Java AWT containers adhere to the Composite design
pattern.
The Strategy pattern is a Behavioral design pattern. The intent of the
Strategy design pattern is to define a family of algorithms, encapsulate
each one, and make them interchangeable. The Strategy design pattern
lets the algorithm vary independently from clients that use it. Sun
Microsystems' java.awt.LayoutManager interface and its subclasses adhere
to the Strategy design pattern, in that they implement various
strategies for laying out components in a container, and the strategy
can be changed "on the fly" without changes to the containers (or the
components). Sun Microsystems' java.awt.image.ColorModel class provides
a uniform interface to handle different color models. It adheres to the
Strategy design pattern, with each derived ColorModel class providing a
different strategy for handling colors. The FocusManager in Sun
Microsystems' java.awt.Window class also adheres to the Strategy design
pattern.
The Abstract Factory pattern is a Creational design pattern. The intent
of the Abstract Factory design pattern is to provide a facility for
creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying
their concrete classes. Sun Microsystems' java.awt.Toolkit class acts
as an Abstract Factory for creating GUI (graphical user interface)
specific components (AWT "peer" classes).
The Mediator pattern is a Behavioral design pattern. The intent of the
Mediator design pattern is to define an object that encapsulates how a
set of objects interact. The Mediator design pattern promotes loose
coupling by keeping objects from referring to each other explicitly, and
it lets you vary their interaction independently. Sun Microsystems'
java.awt.MediaTracker class (which manages the loading of graphical,
audio, or other data) adheres to the Mediator design pattern controlling
various sub-elements and making sure they function together. The
FocusManager in Sun's java.awt.Window class also adheres to the Mediator
design pattern.
The Bridge pattern is a Structural design pattern. The intent of the
Bridge design pattern is to decouple an abstraction from its
implementation so that the two can vary independently. Sun
Microsystems' java.awt peer interfaces adhere to the Bridge design
pattern and separate the actual implementations of the GUI elements from
the "generic" interfaces.
The Singleton design pattern is a Creational design pattern. Sun
Microsystems' Java class loader adheres to the Singleton design
pattern. Its intent is to ensure a Java class has one and only one
instance, and provide a global point of access to it. A singleton is a
Java class for which only one instance can exist within a program. In
other words, only one, single object of that particular class can be
created in a program.
The MVC (Model/View/Controller) architecture separates a software
component into three distinct pieces: a model, a view, and a
controller. The Model/View/Controller architecture was introduced as
part of the Smalltalk-80 version of the Smalltalk programming language
(a popular object-oriented programming language invented by Alan Kay).
The Model/View/Controller architecture reduces the programming effort
required to build systems that made use of multiple, synchronized
presentations of the same data. Its central characteristics are that
the model, the controllers, and the views are treated as separate
entities, and that changes made to the model should be reflected
automatically in each of the views. The model is the piece that
represents the state and low-level behavior of the component. The model
can also represent data, as in a data model. It manages the state and
conducts all transformations on that state. The model has no specific
knowledge of either its controllers or its views. The system itself
maintains links between model and views and notifies the views when the
model changes state. The view is the piece that manages the visual
display of the state represented by the model. A model can have more
than one view. The controller is the piece that manages user
interaction with the model. It provides the mechanism by which changes
are made to the state of the model. This construction turns out to be a
powerful design feature. It encourages reuse rather than redesign.
While the MVC architecture is typically used for constructing entire
user interfaces, the designers of the "Swing" graphical user interface
components in Sun Microsystems' Java Foundation Classes 1.1 used it as
the basis for each individual Swing user interface component. Each user
interface component (whether a table, button, or scrollbar) has a model,
a view, and a controller. Furthermore, the model, view, and controller
pieces can change, even while the component is in use. The result is a
user interface toolkit of almost unmatched flexibility.
The Iterator pattern is a Behavioral design pattern. It provides a way
to access the elements of an aggregate object sequentially without
exposing its underlying representation. Iterators provide an abstract
mechanism to access elements in collection classes without revealing
their underlying representations. Using this design pattern can help
reduce code duplication and promote the degree to which software
components depend on each other (coupling). The looser the coupling
between components or subsystems the easy they are to interchange and
maintain. A Java collection class is a class that can contain a number
of items in a certain data structure such as linked lists and hash
tables. An example of a Java collection class is Sun Microsystems'
java.util.Vector. Sun's java.util.Enumeration interface also adheres to
the Iterator design pattern. Hiding the underlying representation of a
collection class helps reduce the level of coupling between classes. If
used correctly, Iterators promote loose coupling between collection
classes and their clients.
The Observer pattern is a Behavioral design pattern as well. Its intent
is to define a one-to-many dependency between objects so that when one
object changes state, all its dependents are notified and updated
automatically. Examples of the Observer design pattern can be found in
the Smalltalk programming language's MVC (Model/View/Controller),
Microsoft's C++ MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) document/view
architecture, and Sun Microsystems' java.util.Observable class. Sun's
java.util.EventListener interface, which is part of Sun's JavaBeans
component architecture, also adheres to the Observer design pattern.
The Observer design pattern generally is used to inform clients
(Observers) if the state of an object (known as the subject) that they
have expressed an interest in changes. The Observer design pattern has
two participants, Observers and Observables and defines a one to many
relationship between them. An Observerable object contains a list of
its Observers. When the Observable's state changes it notifies its
Observers so that they are updated automatically. Observers can help
reduce code duplication and promote the degree to which software
components depend on each other (coupling). The looser the coupling
between components or subsystems the easy they are to interchange and
maintain. Sun's java.awt.image.ImageObserver interface also adheres to
the Observer design pattern.
The object-oriented design of Java supports the use of design patterns,
since design patterns are heavily based on objects and their
collaborations. Participants of design patterns are usually objects (or
objects take the role of possibly several participants). Java objects
can thus take the role of a participant such as the client of a
Composite design pattern. Sun Microsystems' Java interfaces certainly
are good tools for design patterns. Objects that participate in several
patterns in different roles can easily be designed using Sun's Java
interface definitions.
Sincerely,
Mark Kuharich
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*** THESOFTWAREVIEW post by: Mark Kuharich <mark@mrkint.com>
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