Limit your abstractionsApplication Events–Proposed Solution #1

time to read 4 min | 611 words

In my previous post, I explained why I really don’t the following.

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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);
 }
}

Now, let us see one proposed solution for that. We can drop the IApplicationEvents.CargoHasArrived and IApplicationEvents.CargoWasMisdirected, instead creating the following:

public interface IHappenOnCargoInspection
{
   void Inspect(Cargo cargo);
}

We can have multiple implementations of this interface, such as this one:

public class MidirectedCargo : IHappenOnCargoInspection
{
   public void Inspect(Cargo cargo)
   {
        if(cargo.Delivery.Misdirected == false)
             return;

        // code to handle misdirected cargo.
   }
}

In a similar fashion, we would have a CargoArrived implementation, and the ICargoInspectionService would be tasked with managing the implementation of IHappenOnCargoInspection, probably through a container. Although I would probably replace it with something like:

container.ExecuteOnAll<IHappenOnCargoInspection>(i=>i.Inspect(cargo));

All in all, it is a simple method, but it means that now the responsibility to detect and act is centralized in each cargo inspector implementation. If the detection of misdirected cargo is changed, we know that there is just one place to make that change. If we need a new behavior, for example, for late cargo, we can do that by introducing a new class, which implement the interface. That gives us the Open Closed Principle.

This is better, but I still don’t like it. There are better methods than that, but we will discuss them in another 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