Limit your abstractionsApplication Events–what about change?

time to read 2 min | 352 words

In my previous post, I showed an example of application events and asked what is wrong with them.

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public class CargoInspectionServiceImpl : ICargoInspectionService 
{
  // code redacted for simplicity

 public override void InspectCargo(TrackingId trackingId)
 {
    Validate.NotNull(trackingId, "Tracking ID is required");

    Cargo cargo = cargoRepository.Find(trackingId);
    if (cargo == null)
    {
      logger.Warn("Can't inspect non-existing cargo " + trackingId);
      return;
    }

    HandlingHistory handlingHistory = handlingEventRepository.LookupHandlingHistoryOfCargo(trackingId);

    cargo.DeriveDeliveryProgress(handlingHistory);

    if (cargo.Delivery.Misdirected)
    {
      applicationEvents.CargoWasMisdirected(cargo);
    }

    if (cargo.Delivery.UnloadedAtDestination)
    {
      applicationEvents.CargoHasArrived(cargo);
    }

    cargoRepository.Store(cargo);
 }
}

This is very problematic code, from my point of view, for several reasons. Look at how it allocate responsibilities. IApplicationEvents is supposed to execute the actual event, but deciding when to execute the event is left for the caller. I said several reasons, but this is the main one, all other flows from it.

What happen when the rules for invoking an event change? What happen when we want to add a new event?

The way this is handled is broken. It violates the Open Closed Principle, it violates the Single Responsibility Principle and it frankly annoys me.

Can you think about ways to improve this?

I’ll discuss some in my next post.

More posts in "Limit your abstractions" series:

  1. (22 Feb 2012) And how do you handle testing?
  2. (21 Feb 2012) The key is in the infrastructure…
  3. (20 Feb 2012) Refactoring toward reduced abstractions
  4. (16 Feb 2012) So what is the whole big deal about?
  5. (15 Feb 2012) All cookies looks the same to the cookie cutter
  6. (14 Feb 2012) Commands vs. Tasks, did you forget the workflow?
  7. (13 Feb 2012) You only get six to a dozen in the entire app
  8. (10 Feb 2012) Application Events–event processing and RX
  9. (09 Feb 2012) Application Events–Proposed Solution #2–Cohesion
  10. (07 Feb 2012) Application Events–Proposed Solution #1
  11. (06 Feb 2012) Application Events–what about change?
  12. (03 Feb 2012) Application Events–the wrong way
  13. (02 Feb 2012) Analyzing a DDD application