I'm working on a small application from scratch and using it to try to teach myself architecture and design concepts. It's a .NET 3.5, WPF application, and I'm using Sql Compact Edition as my data store.
I'm working on the business logic layer, and have just now begun to write the DAL. I'm just using SqlCeComamnds to send over simple queries and SqlCeResultSet to get at the results. I'm starting to design my Insert and Update methods, and here's the issue - I don't know the best way to get the necessary data from the BLL into the DAL. Do I pass in a generic collection? Do I have a massive parameter list with all the data for the database? Do I simply pass in the actual business object (thus tying my DAL to the conrete stuff in the BLL?).
I thought about using interfaces - simply passing IBusinessObjectA into the DAL, which provides the simplicity I'm looking for without tying me TOO tightly to current implementations. What do you guys think?
I don't think there is a simple answer to your questions because there are many options depending on the circumstances. I have found it helpful to read the two books below to help me understand the problems you describe better.
MS .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise (Esposito, Saltarello)
MS Application Architecture Guide, 2nd edition.
The second book is available online. Look here.
I think it is OK to pass the Business object to the Data Access Layer. I think the BLL's job is just to work with its objects, to check if all rules are being followed, about what can be saved, by whom, on what fields, time, etc.
Once it has done that it should pass it to the DAL, and I think it is IT'S job to figure out how to convert what it got into something that can be persisted, but it wont check what is being persisted or read or by whom, it will just do it. This could be straight foward, a la linq, but if your logic mdoels do not match your data model 1:1, then the DAL should do all the conversion.
About tying your DAL to the stuff in the BLL, I think you should worry about the other way around, tying your BLL to your DAL. I would use an interface to represent your DAL (as in IRepository) that way you can make your BLL call any kind of persistance mechanism just by changing the type of IRepository it is using (extra points if you use IoC :P). The concrete classes that implement the IRepository would be tied to the business objects, but they have to know what is it that they are saving don't they? while the BLL does NOT have to know what is doing the saving.
To pass business object in the DAL is the simpler and fastest method. It works in small projects, but have same disadvantages:
1) Business Objects are part of BLL layer, and if you pass objects in BLL then DAL becomes dependent of BLL. low layer knows about upper one - this contradicts the idea of layers at all.
2) Business Object are usially very complex to save it directly in BD. In this case it is better to introduce new "Mappers" intermediate layer.
To overcome all these issues I usially make interface to DAL independent of Business Objects. I use "Row" classes instead - representation of one record in the database or XML. In .NET 3.5 linqtosql autogenerated classes can be used for this purpose.
If I was in your position, I'd probably use LINQ to SQL to define my data access layer - it'll save you lots of work maintaining all that SqlCeFooBar stuff and give you a designer (of sorts) for maintaining your database that you would otherwise lack, using SQL CE.
So in that case, I'd probably couple the business logic layer pretty tightly to the entities exposed by the L2S layer. The justification being that the entities are the business objects, albeit devoid of any services.
I probably wouldn't let the entities get as far up the hierarchy as the UI though. At that level, it makes much more sense to use a model specifically for the view - especially given that you're using WPF.
Of course, all of this depends upon the size and complexity of your application. I'm assuming it's a fairly small scale application (single user?) given that you're using SQL CE.
Related
I have read many posts concerning the issue of having several databases and how to design a DAL efficiently in this case. In many cases, the forum suggests to apply the repository pattern, which works fine in most cases.
However, I find myself in a different situation. I have 3 different databases: Oracle, OLE DB and SQLServer. Currently, there exists a unique DAL with many different classes sending SQL queries down to a layer below to be executed in the corresponding database. They way the system works is that two of the databases are only used to read information from them, and the other one is used to either store this same information or read it later on. I have to propose a better design to the current implementation, but it seems as if a common interface for all three databases is not plausible from an architectural point of view.
Is there any design pattern that solves this situation? Should I have three different DALs? Or perhaps it is possible (and advisable) to apply the repository pattern to this problem?
Answers to your question will probably be very subjective. These are some thoughts.
You could apply command-query separation. The query side integrates directly with your data layer, bypassing any business or domain layer, and the returning entities are optimized for read and project from your databases. This layer could also be responsible to merge results from different database calls.
The command side consists of command handlers, using domain or business entities, which are mapped from your R/W database.
By doing this, the interface that you expose will be more clear and business oriented.
I'm not sure that completely abstracting out the data access layer with custom units of work and repositories is really needed: do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? They rarely do, because you will you ever change a database technology? And if you do, this probably means a rewrite anyway. Also, if you use entity framework code first, you already have unit of work and an abstraction on top of your database; and the flexibility of using LINQ.
Bottom line - try not to over-engineer/over-abstract things; or make things super-generic.
Your core/business code should never be dependent on any contract/interface/class that is placed in the DAL layer of the application.
Accessing data is something the business/core layer of your application needs to be able to do, and this it should be able to do without any dependency of SQL statements and without having any knowledge of the underlying data access technology.
I think you need to remove any "sql" statements from the core part of the application. SQL is vendor dependent and any dependency to a specific database engine needs to be clean out of you core, and moved to the DAL where it belongs. Then you need to create interfaces that resides outside of the DAL(s) which you then create implementation classes for in one or many DAL modules/classes. Your DAL can be dependent of your core, but not the other way around.
I don't see why the repository layer can't be used in this case. When I have a database which I can only read from, I usually let the name of the repository interface indicate this, like ICompanyRepositoryRead.
In my quest to understand MVP-VM design pattern in preparation for a new project which will be using DevExpress, I am unable to find an example with a database example.
Viewing DevExpress, I am unable to locate an example with this design pattern.
So, my question is this, does anyone who has experience of this design pattern, if you have experience of this with DevExpress even better, can give me an example of database connection, mapping data from a database (query/table) to model, and saving data to the database?
I appreciate this may sound rather an elementary question, but I do not know with this pattern what is the best practice for taking data from the view to persist to a database, and vice versa. Therefore, I do not wish to go off and doing incorrect.
Thanks
Classic architectures define the following parts:
DAL (Data Access Layer) : Deals with db operations, contains no business logic.
BLL (Business Logic Layer) : Deals with business logic and constraints, but no database operations.
PL (Presentation Layer) : Deals with presentation and user interaction.
MVP/MVVM deals with PL only. The big question is, what exactly is the M(odel) in this patterns. One example is using Entity Framework or DevExpress XPO to map objects to the database. But what are this objects? Are they the VMs? Are they the Model(s)? Or are they just simple Dtos of the Dal? If you look at the previous definitions, the last one will be the most matching one. But that means you have to map this dtos to you model objects (where the logic resides) and to you vms (where the databinding happens) or first to your model and in a second step from there to your vms? What about the filtering/sorting/paging capabilities of the datagrid, that only works if you give it direct access to you dal?
In my opinion true separation of the three aspects could only be achieved with CQRS or similiar architectures. At least I don't know of others. But this is only for extreme complex applications with lot of business logic and comes with much overhead and trade offs.
So, for your app, you have to decide which barriers you will break to suite your needs and to avoid needless complexity for your project. A simple CRUD application could use Entity Framework/XPO and use the objects directly as VMs for databinding. You have no bll at all. If it grows more complex you perhaps go a little bit in the direction of cqrs. You define views and use EF/XPO and their objects directly for databinding, but for complex operations you create a bll (domain)model with objects (that are loaded with EF/XPO either) that execute theese operations (needing to reload you vms afterwards). And if it is even more complex, you could go the complete way to CQRS perhaps with event sourcing and perhaps modeling with DDD.
I Am creating a web application and first use Entity Framework. I created Entity Data Model and now I am not sure, how to proceed now.
Premise: My database is really simple (Rating, WebPage, Visitor) and database tables corresponds to the business objects.
My suggestion is 3tier architecture but how to make it?
It is good idea create partial classes with the same name as Entity Framework objects (Rating, Visitor) and declare here new methods (GetAverageRating()...)? Or is better create some VisitorProvider, RatingProvider and place logic here?
It is better use EF objects in BLL and Presentation Layer or I should create my own BO objects on my BLL layer and transform EF object to BO?
I'm think, it is more practical use static methods on my DAL than instantiate classes on BLL. Do you agree?
Can you recommend me some best practices? I have many ideas how to create it, but I do not know what is the right.
3 layer architecture is quite popular but what it really means?
Presentation layer
Application layer
Database layer
If you ask what each layer means you can be pretty sure you will get several different answers. You can further divide each layer into sublayer and build layered hell like:
Client side presentation layer
Server side view layer
Controller layer
Service facade layer
Service layer
Domain objects layer
Repository + Factory layer
ORM layer
Stored procedure layer
Database view layer
Database table layer
WTF? That is just example that application can be easily over architected. It can go even worse if you insist that only neighbours can exchange data and if you decide to add special type of objects to be exchanged between layers instead of flowing sing set of objects through multiple layers.
Add layers which you need to make you more comfortable with developing the application and which will do reasonable separation of concerns and maintainability needed for the scale of your application. You can simply do the most simplest application which will be used just few weeks and must be developed as fast as possible. In such case you can do that within few days simply by using ASP.NET web forms and data source controls (or ASP.NET dynamic data). It can be badly extensible but in such situation it is exactly what you need to implement application quickly. Writing layers and doing all the stuff around maintainability and extensibility is reasonable if you need it. Another quick prototyping technique is ASP.NET MVC Scaffolding which can create quick multilayered skeleton of the application which can be further modified.
Both approaches are correct and it only depends on the approach you like. The first is called active record pattern but it is not used very often with entity framework. The second approach is more popular. You can either use EF directly in some middle class which you called Provider (common name is also Service). This class will do both data access logic and business logic. In more complex applications developers like to somehow wrap EF to separate class following repository pattern and call the repository either from service or directly from web app. code behind or controller (depending on amount of business logic). Try to do it without repository first. My personal opinion is that people should start to use repository only once they understand EF itself.
Again both approaches are correct. In a simple application it is fully acceptable to create EF model with POCO classes (EFv4.x) and use them in all layers. If you are using ASP.NET MVC you can find that you need special classes as view models to fully represent needs of your individual views. In a more complex application you can have separate objects exposed from a business layer - this is especially used if the business layer is exposed as a remote service (WCF).
It depends how you write these DAL methods - it is absolutely necessary to not share the EF context among requests! It also depends if you want to write some test or not. Layer defined by static methods is something which goes directly against testable architecture where you want unit test just single layer (unit testing with EF can be hard). It also depends if you want to use dependency injection which is based on instances.
I recently began reading Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework.
The author talks about creating repositories, and using interfaces to set up quick automated tests, which sounds awesome.
But it carries the problem of having to declare yourself all the fields for each table in the database twice: once in the actual database, and once in the C# code, instead of auto-generating the C# data access classes with an ORM.
I do understand that this is a great practice, and enables TDD which also looks awesome. But my question is:
Isn't there any workaround having to declare fields twice: both in the database and the C# code? Can't I use something that auto-generates the C# code but still allows me to do TDD without having to manually create all the business logic in C# and creating a repository (and a fake one too) for each table?
I understand what you mean: most of the POCO classes that you're declaring to have retrieved by repositories look a whole lot like the classes that get auto-generated by your ORM framework. It is tempting, therefore, to reuse those data-access classes as if they were business objects.
But in my experience, it is rare for the data I need in a piece of business logic to be exactly like the data-access classes. Usually I either need some specific subset of data from a data object, or some combination of data produced by joining a few data objects together. If I'm willing to spend another two minutes actually constructing the POCO that I have in mind, and creating an interface to represent the repository methods I plan to use, I find that the code ends up being much easier to refactor when I need to change business logic.
If you use Entity Framework 4, you can generate POCO object automatically from the database. ( Link)
Then you can implement a generic IRepository and its generic SqlRepository, this will allow you to have a repository for all your objects. This is explained here : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ff714955.aspx
This is a clean way to achieve what you want: you only declare your object once in your database, generate them automatically, and can easily access them with your repository (in addition you can do IoC and unit test :) )
I recommend you to read the second edition of this book which is pure gold and updated with the new features introduced in MVC 2
http://www.amazon.com/ASP-NET-Framework-Second-Experts-Voice/dp/1430228865/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289851862&sr=1-1
And you should also read about the new features introduced in MVC3 which is now in RC (there is a new view engine really useful) http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/11/09/announcing-the-asp-net-mvc-3-release-candidate.aspx
You are not declaring the business logic twice. It's just that this business logic is abstracted behind an interface and in the implementation of this interface you can do whatever you want : hit the database, read from the filesystem, aggregate information from web addresses, ... This interface allows weaker coupling between the controller and the implementation of the repository and among other simplifies TDD. Think of it as a contract between the controller and the business.
We are currently revamping our architecture and design of application. We have just completed design of Data Access Layer which is generic in the sense that it works using XML and reflection to persist data.
Any ways now we are in the phase of designing business layer. We have read some books related to Enterprise Architecture and Design so we have found that there are few patterns that can be applied on business layer. Table Pattern and Domain Model are example of such patterns. Also we have found Domain Driven Design as well.
Earlier we decided to build Entities against table objects. But we found that there is difference in Entities and Value Objects when it comes to DDD. For those of you who have gone through such design. Please guide me related to pattern, practice and sample.
Thank you in advance! Also please feel free to discuss if you didn't get any point of mine.
#Adil, this is not an answer to your original question, but I would advise you to revise your decision to roll your own data access layer. You note that you'd like to go to NHibernate: just do it now.
IMO, writing an ORM is a waste of time unless you have some very specific restrictions. There are a wealth of options out there, with hundreds of hours of effort poured into them already. Leverage it! LINQ2SQL, Entity framework, NHibernate, Subsonic, LLBLGen are all good, and there are more out there.
Note too that if you roll your own you won't get to use the goodness that is LINQ without a lot of effort.
As far as layering goes, try not to go nuts: keep the number of layers in check and concentrate instead on building a worthwhile interface between them to guard against your abstractions leaking.
I've seen a number of very "patterned", beautifully layered projects that in use end up with logic everywhere and persistence abstractions leaked all over the place. Keep it simple!
CSLA.NET works pretty well as a base for the business layer.
#Adil,
I'm not very experient user, anyway, this is the kind of model I'm using (also with NHibernate).
GUI - with all the web forms and so on
BLL - The catalogs that are responsible for creating instances of new objects
DAL - The place where classes responsible for interaction with NHibernate are implemented. The NHibernate mapping files are here.
Model - Class Library that is used by the BLL and DAL for data transfer object between.
Different patterns are used. For example, the BLL and DAL have a Factory class that allow access to an interface. The catalogs are Singleton classes. All of the catalogs are accessible using a master Singleton class representing my business logic top object (for example "Enterprise" => "Enterprise.PeopleCatalog".
Anyway, hope it helped...
#AngryHacker, thanks for the tip, could you give an example of CSLA.NET?