How Not to Build A Big Ball of Mud

If you are a software developer or architect, in addition to the ever changing business requirements, you also need to deal with the myriad of application development frameworks and design patterns out there. There are frameworks for: the User Interface (UI), Dependency Injection (DI), Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP), and Object-Relational Mapping (ORM). On top of that, you will probably need a web services framework and perhaps an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) if you need to integrate applications. As an architect, you also need to keep an eye on scalability, availability, security, usability, industry standards, and government regulations.

In such an environment, the lack of a disciplined approach to software architecture can quickly lead to a Big Ball of Mud. In a paper presented in 1997 at the Fourth Conference on Patterns Languages of Programs, Brian Foote and Joseh Yoder describe the Big Ball of Mud:

A BIG BALL OF MUD is haphazardly structured, sprawling, sloppy, duct-tape and bailing wire, spaghetti code jungle. We’ve all seen them. These systems show unmistakable signs of unregulated growth, and repeated, expedient repair. Information is shared promiscuously among distant elements of the system, often to the point where nearly all the important information becomes global or duplicated. The overall structure of the system may never have been well defined. If it was, it may have eroded beyond recognition. Programmers with a shred of architectural sensibility shun these quagmires. Only those who are unconcerned about architecture, and, perhaps, are comfortable with the inertia of the day-to-day chore of patching the holes in these failing dikes, are content to work on such systems.

The Big Ball of Mud remains the most pervasive architecture today. Note that these problems can be exacerbated by an agile software development approach that leaves little or no room for design and strategic thinking (see my previous post on software architecture documentation in agile projects).

Domain Driven Design (DDD) is a set of patterns that have been introduced by Eric Evans in his book entitled: "Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software". I won't go into the details of what those patterns are. I do recommend that you read the book and there are other free DDD resources on the web as well. However, I will share with you some key DDD principles that have been helpful to me in wrapping my head around software architecture complexity:

• Collaboration between software developers and domain experts is important to create a common understanding of the concepts of the domain. Note that we're not talking about UI components such as screens or fields here, nor are we talking about computer science abstractions such as classes and objects. We are talking about what the domain is made of conceptually. These domain concepts are expressed in a Ubiquitous Language that is used not only in conversations and software documentation, but also in the code. So in essence, DDD is model-driven design: the model can be translated into code and frameworks like Naked Objects can help you do exactly that. Continuously refine the model.
  
  
• Experimentation and rapid prototyping are an efficient way to collaborate with domain experts and business analysts. This is where the Naked Objects Framework can be very helpful. Note that you can use Naked Objects for the initial prototyping and domain modeling, and then use your preferred frameworks for the remaining layers of your application.
  
  
• Pay attention to the correct implementation of DDD building blocks such as: entities (behaviour-rich with business rules), value objects, aggregates, aggregate roots, domain events, factories, repositories, and services. Avoid an anemic domain model and know how to recognize value objects and persist them properly. Value objects (such as money and time interval) are immutable and are manipulated through side-effect free functions. Move complexity and behaviour out of your entities into those value objects.
  
  
• Domain concepts are grouped into modules to delineate what Eric Evans calls the "conceptual contours" of the domain. To reduce coupling, OO patterns such as the dependency inversion principle, the interface segregation principle, and the acyclic dependency principles are applied.
  
  
• DDD recommends the following four layers: the presentation layer, the application layer, the domain layer, and the infrastructure layer. Although the idea of a multi-tier architecture is not new, the anti-patterns are typically: a fat application layer, an anemic domain model, and a tangled mess in general. So, properly layer your architecture:
  
  
  
  • Repository interfaces are in the domain layer, but their implementation are in the infrastructure layer to allow "Persistence Ignorance"
    
  • Both the interface and implementation of factories are in the domain layer
    
  • Domain and infrastructure services are injected into entities using dependency injection (some argue that DDD is not possible without DI, AOP, and ORM)
    
  • The application layer takes care of cross-cutting concerns such as transactions and security. It can also mediate between the presentation layer and domain layer through Data Transfer Objects (DTOs).
    
  
  
  
• DDD enables Object Oriented User Interfaces (OOUI) which expose the richness of the domain layer as opposed to obscuring it.
  
  
• Models exist within bounded contexts and the latter should be clearly identified. In his book, Eric Evans talks about "strategic design" and "context maps" and suggests the following options for integrating applications:
  
  
  
  • Published language
    
  • Open host service
    
  • Shared kernel
    
  • Customer/supplier
    
  • Conformist
    
  • Anti-corruption layer
    
  • Separate ways.
    
  
  
  In industries such as healthcare where an XML-based data exchange standard exists, the "Published Language" approach is the pattern typically used. Each healthcare application participating in an exchange represents a separate context. On the other hand, an "Anti-Corruption Layer" can be created as an adapter to isolate the model against an industry standard model that is not considered best practice in data modeling, is inconsistent, immature, or subject to change. However, since there is tremendous value in exchanging data, we hope not to go "Separate Ways".
  
  
• DDD is a solid foundation for next-generation architecture based on the Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) pattern. The UI sends commands which are handled by command handlers. These command handlers change the state of aggregate roots. However, the aggregate roots still define behavior and business rules and are responsible for maintaining invariants. Changes to aggregate roots generate events that are stored in an event store (this is called event sourcing). Aggregate roots are persisted by storing these streams of events in the event store. That way, the aggregate roots can be reconstructed by replaying the events from the event store. The events are published to subscribers including denormalizers for enhanced query performance. The separation of the read side from the write side allows:
  
  
  
  • Increased performance and scalability on the read and reporting side particularly when combined with a cloud deployment model
    
  • Complete audit trails through the event store
    
  • New data mining capabilities leveraging temporal queries
    
  • The opportunity to eliminate the need for Object Relational Mapping (ORM) through the use of high performance NoSQL databases.