Partitioning and Layering a Software Application How do you design your software to be more adaptable to changing technologies, fixing bugs and new requirements? Everyone answers: use layering. But exactly how do you develop software layers, or create application interfaces that allow you to make these changes? This course will focus on techniques such as interface-based design, proper use of inheritance, inversion of control, factories, facades, and other patterns and techniques. It will demonstrate these principles by walking through the process of transforming a tightly coupled application into a properly layered one. The examples are in C#, but the principles apply to any programming language. Learning Resources Published on: 7/19/2010 Author: Michael Stiefel, Reliable Software, Inc. Partitioning and Layer Fundamentals In this module you'll learn the fundamental principles of partitioning and layering. We will start to demonstrate these principles with interface-based design.   Article: Basic Principles of Partitioning and Layering   Slide-cast: Basic Principles of Partitioning and Layering   PowerPoint: Basic Principles of Partitioning and Layering   Code-cast: Basic Principles of Partitioning and Layering   Examples: Basic Principles of Partitioning and Layering   Extending Interface Based Design We will now demonstrate how to properly divide your logical design into physical components by treating interfaces as types. This will facilitate the independent evolution of parts of your design by different developers. By making testability much easier, it will allow you to validate your design as it evolves using testing. We will also introduce the concept of refactoring and the factory design pattern.   Article: Extending Interface Based Design   Slide-cast: Extending Interface Based Design   PowerPoint: Extending Interface Based Design   Code-cast: Extending Interface Based Design   Examples: Extending Interface Based Design   Domain and Persistence Patterns Isolating the application from the details of the how the data is stored allows you to modify the application and the database independently. This issue is at the core of the object relational mismatch, where the modeling of an application's domain with objects clashes with the modeling of data in a relational database. You can use domain and persistence patterns to alleviate the difficulties with this clash. Even if you use other storage mechanisms, or do not have a domain object model, it is still important to isolate the application and data layers.   Article: Domain and Persistence Patterns Slide-cast: Domain and Persistence Patterns   PowerPoint: Domain and Persistence Patterns   Code-cast: Domain and Persistence Patterns   Examples: Domain and Persistence Patterns   Inversion of Control and MVC This unit discusses two important items: Inversion of Control and Model-View-Controller. Inversion of Control occurs when an object's external dependencies are provided to it, rather than having the object create its own dependencies. You can then write code in a more generic and flexible fashion. It also allows you to improve the testability of your application. The Model-View-Controller pattern is important for isolating the business logic from the user interface. This improves the testability of the application and allows the user interface and the business logic to evolve independently.   Article: Inversion of Control and MVC   Slide-cast: Inversion of Control and MVC   PowerPoint: Inversion of Control and MVC   Code-cast: Inversion of Control and MVC   Examples: Inversion of Control and MVC   Transforming the Application Now we will demonstrate how a properly partitioned application can easily be modified. We will convert our console application to a web app, use SQL Server as our data store, and introduce web services very quickly.   Article: Transforming the Application   Slide-cast: Transforming the Application   PowerPoint: Transforming the Application   Code-cast: Transforming the Application   Examples: Transforming the Application Have questions or feedback? Send us e-mail.