Agenda

Do Application Design Patterns Make •What are Design Patterns?

Sense in ASP.NET? •Basic Design Patterns for ASP.NET
•Basic Pattern Support within ASP.NET
Alex Homer
•Controller Patterns for ASP.NET
alex@stonebroom.com
•Advanced Patterns for ASP.NET
You may like to write these down now... •Conclusion and Summary
•http://www.daveandal.net/articles/
•http://www.daveandal.net/download/

Design Patterns are Scary...! You Use Patterns Every Day...

try
{ something }
catch (SqlException qx) Structured
{ handle SQL error } Exception
catch (SecurityException sx) Handling
{ handle security violation }
catch (Exception ex)
{ handle all other exceptions }
finally
{ clean up resources } Factory

Using xr As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create("file.xml")

... read some XML ...
End Using Lifetime

What are Design Patterns? Why Do We Need Design Patterns?

•Informal Design Patterns •Engineering disciplines require patterns
–Code constructs, best practice, well-structured, –Structural Engineering
common sense, the accepted approach, evolved –Electronic Engineering
over time –... even Social Engineering!
•Formal Design Patterns •Creating software is also Engineering
–Documented as "Context", "Problem", "Solution", –Structural design and architecture
and a UML diagram –Componentization and interconnections
–Have specific aims –User interface design and implementation
–Solve specific issues –Deployment, testing, and management
 Formal Design Patterns The Gang of Four (GOF)
"Fundamental to any science or engineering discipline
is a common vocabulary for expressing its concepts,
and a language for relating them together." • Erich Gamma, Richard Helm,
Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides
"... a body of literature to help software developers
• "Design Patterns: Elements of
resolve recurring problems encountered throughout
Reusable Object-Oriented
all of software development."
Software" (1995)
"... a shared language for communicating insight and
experience about these problems and their
n The Hillside Group
solutions." http://hillside.net/patterns/DPBook/GOF.html
from http://www.scmpatterns.com/

Microsoft .NET Design Patterns .NET Design Pattern Frameworks

•"data & object factory"
• "Enterprise Solution Patterns Using –Design Pattern Framework 2.0
Microsoft .NET" – http://www.dofactory.com/Framework/Framework.aspx
• From the patterns and practices • Ingenious MVC for .NET 2.0 Web and WinForms
(p&p) Group – http://sourceforge.net/projects/ingeniousmvc
• Printed book (ISBN: 0735618399) •Microsoft "patterns & practices" Group
– CAB and ObjectBuilder
n PDF Download
– Enterprise Library
• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3C8
1C38E-ABFC-484F-A076-CF99B3485754 – Software Factories (Smart Client, Mobile, Web Service)
– http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/

Pattern Types and Families Common Patterns in ASP.NET

• Model-View-Controller (MVC)
Presentation
• Model-View-Presenter (MVP) Logic
• Use Case Controller
• Command
Host or
• Publish-Subscribe / Observer Behavioral
• Plug-in / Module / Intercepting Filter
• Service Agent / Proxy / Broker
Structural
• Provider / Adapter
• Factory / Builder / Injection
Creational
• Singleton
These are just a few of the common ones ...
• Repository Persistence
PatternShare.org lists more than 250 !
 Agenda
•What are Design Patterns?
•Basic Design Patterns for ASP.NET
•Basic Pattern Support within ASP.NET
•Controller Patterns for ASP.NET
•Advanced Patterns for ASP.NET
•Conclusion and Summary
Provider / Adapter Patterns
n Used by ASP.NET itself, and other frameworks
such as Enterprise Library
n Allows behavioral changes without prior
knowledge of requirements
Repository Persistence Pattern
n Virtualizes storage of an entity in a persistent
medium, such as a database or as XML
n Hides storage implementation from the
application code
MVC & MVP Presentation Patterns
• Both improve reusability of business logic
• MVC has dependency between model and view
• MVP improves testability but adds complexity
Service Agent / Proxy / Broker
n Removes dependencies between client and
service through intermediate brokers
n Range of different implementations, with or
without service agent logic component
Singleton Creation Pattern
n Provides for creation of a class for which
only a single instance can exist
n Useful for exposing read-only data
n Useful for exposing static methods that do
not rely on instance data
n Include private default constructor to
prevent client instantiation
n Provide a static GetInstance method that
returns the current instance
 Agenda Pattern Support within ASP.NET
•What are Design Patterns?
•Basic Design Patterns for ASP.NET
•Basic Pattern Support within ASP.NET
•Controller Patterns for ASP.NET
•Advanced Patterns for ASP.NET
•Conclusion and Summary

Pattern Support within ASP.NET Pattern Support within ASP.NET

Pattern Support within ASP.NET Pattern Support within ASP.NET

 How To... Basic Patterns in ASP.NET Example
• MVP: use ASP.NET code-behind model or extend
code file with custom classes
• Provider: use built-in providers or create custom
providers from a base class or interface
• Repository: typed DataSet, third-party tools (such as
CodeSmith), or custom code
• Adapter: use built-in (such as CSS control adapters)
or create custom adapters
• Service Agent and Proxy: Web References in Visual
Studio, maybe wrap in custom class

Agenda Use Case Controller

•What are Design Patterns?
•Basic Design Patterns for ASP.NET
•Basic Pattern Support within ASP.NET
•Controller Patterns for ASP.NET
•Advanced Patterns for ASP.NET
•Conclusion and Summary

n Coordinates and sequences interaction between

the system and the users to carry out a process

Page Controller & Front Controller Plug-in/Module/Intercepting Filter

• Select content to display in a page using different
partial views, or...
• Select which page (view) to display
n Allows the features or behavior of an application
to change when it loads separate components
that implement extra functionality
n Plug-ins and Modules may be custom assemblies
(modules), or general-purpose software
components such as ActiveX controls or Java
applets
n Intercepting Filters reside in an application
pipeline, such as the ASP.NET HTTP pipeline
n Commonly, the components extend the features
of the host application
 Implementation in ASP.NET How To...
• Use Case: custom branching code in presenter class -
case statements using Server.Transfer, or displaying
partial Views as User Controls
• Page Controller: custom base class for Page that
handles Init or Load event to perform common tasks
then calls a method in the actual page to create
page-specific content
• Front Controller: an HTTP Module that adds a
custom handler to a pipeline event that performs the
• HTTP Module performs redirection at front
appropriate Server.Transfer
• Page Controller selects view elements

Page & Front Controller Example Agenda

•What are Design Patterns?
•Basic Design Patterns for ASP.NET
•Basic Pattern Support within ASP.NET
•Controller Patterns for ASP.NET
•Advanced Patterns for ASP.NET
•Conclusion and Summary

Factory / Builder / Injection Command Design Pattern

n Separates the construction of a complex object
from its representation
n Allows use of the same construction process to
create different representations
n In the Factory pattern, the subclasses of the
object generator determine the object type
n In the Builder and Injection patterns, the client
passes instructions or hints to the object
generator to specify the required object type.
• Separates command invoker and receiver
 Observer and Publish/Subscribe Command-Observer Implementation

n Separates creator and receiver(s) of events • Client creates and subscribes objects

Command-Observer Implementation Command-Observer Example

• Introduces a dependency between Observer and

Subject, but removes the requirement for events

Observer and Publish/Subscribe Publish-Subscribe Example

n Separates creator and receiver(s) of events

 Conclusions - 1
• MVP and the various Controller patterns are useful, but
firing update events from Model usually is not.
• Page Controller and Front Controller allow for custom
use case behavior by showing different views or
activating different presenters. Front Controller can make
use of the Intercepting Filter pattern.
• Repository is useful for virtualization of source data.
• Singleton is useful for reducing the need for multiple
instances.
• Service Agent and Proxy are ideal for interacting with
remote services.
Conclusions - 2
• Provider is useful for accessing various types of data
sources.
• Adapter is useful for extending ASP.NET controls.
• Factory, Builder, Injection, Observer, and Command are
probably less useful, more complex, and can be difficult
to implement.
• Event-driven patterns like Publish-Subscribe are generally
useful only if all subscribers are instantiated within the
page lifetime.
• The composite Command-Observer event-free approach
is useful for removing dependencies between classes.

References
• Information about Design Patterns:
– http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-
us/dnpag/html/intpatt.asp
– http://www.patternshare.org/
– http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/
– http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/
– http://www.dofactory.com/Patterns/Patterns.aspx
– http://hillside.net/

• Contact: alex@stonebroom.com
• Slides & code: http://www.daveandal.net/download/
• Article: http://www.daveandal.net/articles/