Have you ever worked on a project where after downloading the code from the repository you start to wonder what business requirements are hidden under the layer of unreadable tests? Or maybe you are currently wondering how to test a new feature that you have been entrusted to implement?
The Clean Architecture concept has been around for some time and keeps surfacing in one place or another, yet it is not widely adopted. In this post I would like to introduce this topic in a less conventional way: starting with customer’s needs and going through various stages to present a solution that is clean enough to satisfy concepts from the aforementioned blog (or the book with the same name).
Most applications need to be able to persist and retrieve their state to be fully functional. In my previous post I compared methods for persisting application state. In this post I will compare the methods for retrieving this state.
An application can be defined as a set of use cases. It often happens that use case A requires a previously executed use case B for its execution. In such situation, it should be ensured that use case B has been executed while executing use case A. To achieve this, application state that is common to both use cases, is introduced. The state must be persisted to be visible to more than one use case. Most often, various types of databases are used for this purpose. While working with source code, I have encountered various methods of persisting the application state. I also came up with my own variations. In this post I will make a subjective comparison of these methods based on specific criteria.
When you go through articles related to Hexagonal Architecture (HA) you usually search for practical examples. HA isn’t simple, that’s why most trivial examples make readers even more confused, though it is not as complex as many theoretical elucidations present it. In most posts you have to scroll through exact citations or rephrased definitions of concepts such as Ports and Adapters or their conceptual diagrams. They have already been well defined and described by popular authors i.e. Alistair Cockburn or Martin Fowler. I assume you already have a general understanding of Domain Driven Design and that you understand terms such as Ports and Adapters. I’m not a HA expert, yet I use it everyday and I find it useful. The only reason I write this post is to show you that Hexagonal Architecture makes sense, at least if your service is a little more than a JsonToDatabaseMapper.
One of the first challenges a programmer has to face is organizing classes within a project. This problem may look trivial but it’s not. Still, it’s worth spending enough time to do it right. I’ll show you why this aspect of software development is crucial by designing a sample project’s architecture.
