Living in the Tech Avalanche Generation

Before diving in you might like to read parts 1, 2 and 3 if you have come to this post out of sync. Also if you are not familiar with some of the newer aspects of the Code Only CTP for Entity Framework it might be worth looking here on the ADO.Net Team blog.

The Service Layer

I want to point out that this approach in development is not restricted to a technology or architecture per`se and in discussing how it fits with a ‘Service Layer’ is equally valid for a Layered Request / Response style Architecture and asynchronous messaging systems with very well defined business components.

Let’s start with a run of the mill WCF approach – I have purposely elided the interface contract for the sake of brevity.

[OperationContract(IsOneWay=true)]
[OperationBehaviour(TranactionScopeRequired=true,
                    TransactionScopeAutoComplete=false)]
public void DiscountRunOutProducts()
{
    IList<IRunOutDiscountForProducts> products = null;

    var compParams = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    compParams.Add(_conParamName, _connectionStringOnly);

    var repo = FetchSpec
                    .Configure
                    .With(new IoC())
                    .AndBuildSession<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>(compParams)
                    .ForRepository();

    using (var scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required,
        new TransactionOptions()
        {
            IsolationLevel =
                SessionBuilder<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>.ScopeIsolation()
        }))
    {
        products = repo.Get<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>();

        foreach (var product in products)
        {
            product.DiscountProductForRunOut();
        }

        scope.Complete();
    }
}

Every expression of intent here is explicit, from the name of the service operation, all the way to the application of the ROLE to the ORM. From an ongoing maintenance perspective, when any of the given actors need to be varied through the life cycle of the software, this can be done independently. For example, we don’t have to revisit our service layers code when we profile the system and find that the fetching strategy should be eager fetching for a given scenario, instead we can build a new version of the existing Fetching Strategy and drop it in. This kind of flexibility ripples through the system, with the same said for Specifications, Message Handlers, so on and so forth. If of course you wanted to change the code to accept a Specification ‘in line’ rather than have it deployed and dynamically resolved, then you could probably have just implemented an overloaded version of the Service operation to begin with and pass in the parameters required to build those pieces at runtime. The example is a one way operation but you could easily be returning values and accepting parameters (think DTO’s) in a request / response scenario. Bear in mind these DTO’s are not being mapped and subsequently attached, they are either parameters for the ORM or return property buckets for binding or mapping to a presentation model.

For a point of difference, let’s take a look at how this might work if our Service Layer was implemented on top of the popular Open Source Framework NServiceBus.

public class DiscountRunOutProductsMessage: IMessage
{
    public string DiscountedRegion{ get; set; }
    public decimal UnitPrice{ get; set; }
}

public class DiscountRunOutProducts :
             IMessageHandler<DiscountRunOutProductsMessage>
{
    public void Handle(DiscountRunOutProductsMessage message)
    {
        IList<IRunOutDiscountForProducts> products = null;

        var compParams = new Dictionary<string, string>();
        compParams.Add(_conParamName, _connectionStringOnly);

        var repo = FetchSpec.Configure
                            .With(new IoC())
                            .AndBuildSession<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>
                                (compParams)
                            .ForRepository();

        using (var scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required,
            new TransactionOptions()
            {
                IsolationLevel =
                    SessionBuilder<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>.ScopeIsolation()
            }))
        {
            var spec = new Specification<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>
                            (p => p.UnitPrice < message.UnitPrice &&
                             p.Supplier.Region = message.DiscountedRegion);

            products = repo.Get<IRunOutDiscountForProducts>(spec);

            foreach (var product in products)
            {
                product.DiscountProductForRunOut();
            }

            scope.Complete();
        }
    }
}

Something worth pointing out in our NServiceBus example is that it too is quite explicit. The message handler, handles messages expressly for the purpose of discounting products to be ‘run out’, exemplifying how the pattern is becoming more entrenched in our style of working. Once again, if we don’t like anything about the way the handler is doing it’s work, we can throw it away in preference for a new implementation.

Not to be left out

Steve left a comment and asked me not to forgo examples that dealt with inserting and updating data, Steve also wanted to know about how I go about dealing with the Unit of Work and the ‘per session’ vs. ‘conversation’ and the differences that spring up and also when working with WCF and dealing with optimistic concurrency. Fortunately this part in the series takes aim squarely at how to go about using Entity Framework in concert with Roles from the Service Layer and we tackle those questions by necessity.

Listing 1.0 – Inserts

public void add_a_product()
{
    var compParams = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    compParams.Add(_conParamName, _connectionStringOnly);

    var repo = FetchSpec.Configure
                        .With(new StubIoc() {
                            ScannedAssemblyPath = _scannedAssemblyPath })
                        .AndBuildSession<ICustomerToAddOrder>(compParams)
                        .ForRepository();

    var spec =
        new Specification<ICustomerToAddOrder>(c => c.CustomerID == “ALFKI”);
    var config = new IQueryConfigurable[] { spec };

    using (var scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required,
        new TransactionOptions()
        {
                IsolationLevel =
                    SessionBuilder<ICustomerToAddOrder>.ScopeIsolation()
        }))
    {
        dynamic customer = repo.Get<ICustomerToAddOrder>(config).First();

        var order = repo.IocContainer
                        .ConvertFromRoleToImpl<IOrderToAddToCustomer>();
        order.CustomerID = customer.CustomerID;
        order.Customer = customer;

        customer.AddOrder(order);

        repo.Save();

        scope.Complete();
    }
}

Not entirely in the spirit of things

Notice the use of the dynamic keyword above (suggested by Mark) Let me explain. Due the Entity Frameworks hard and fast rule of only allowing EntityConfiguration<T> to specify a concrete class as it’s generic argument, the flow through effects have rippled out, with the customer variable and the order variable. The problem is that the IoC container can’t know ahead of time what the implementation type for the interface might be and order.Customer property is forced to use a concrete type (not interface) to satisfy the Entity Framework for mapping purposes enforced by EntityConfiguration<T>. After speaking to David DeWinter (a Tester on the EF Team who responded to a tweet I made), he suggested that it was likely implemented this way to satisfy ObjectSet<T> which also constrains to a concrete implementation (makes sense).

Ultimately the dynamic keyword will get us over the line with respect to this one final hurdle, however my gut says that this work around isn’t entirely in the spirit of NFetchSpec and smacks a little of my old enemy the VARIANT, but I’m prepared to make this one allowance to get me working in a way that suits my needs. I can still read the code somewhat clearly because even when I’m using dynamic for assignment, I can reason about the type based on the interface specified to the repository and the IoC container. I would love to think that this is something that the Entity Framework team might address but I guess I will just have to wait and see.

Under the covers

What code did I need to write to support this ‘adding a product to a customer’ scenario? First up I needed the role itself, then the entities, the mapping classes, the mapping role class and I also needed to write an implementation for IProvideIsolationLevelFor. The Specification I chose to write inline because the parameter value would be provided at run time. Here is the all of it:

The Roles

public interface ICustomerToAddOrder
{
    void AddOrder(IOrderToAddToCustomer order);
    string CustomerID { get; set; }
    ICollection<OrderToAddToCustomer> Orders { get; set; }
}

public interface IOrderToAddToCustomer
{
    string CustomerID { get; set; }
    CustomerToAddOrder Customer { get; set; }
    int OrderID { get; set; }
}

The Entities

public class CustomerToAddOrder : IEntity, ICustomerToAddOrder
{
    public string CustomerID { get; set; }
    public ICollection<OrderToAddToCustomer> Orders { get; set; }

    public void AddOrder(IOrderToAddToCustomer order)
    {
        if (Orders == null)
            Orders = new List<OrderToAddToCustomer>();

        Orders.Add(order as OrderToAddToCustomer);
    }
}

public class OrderToAddToCustomer : IEntity, IOrderToAddToCustomer
{
    public string CustomerID
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public CustomerToAddOrder Customer
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public int OrderID
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

The Mapping Classes

public class CustomerToAddOrderMapping : Mapping<CustomerToAddOrder>
{
    public CustomerToAddOrderMapping(string objectSetName)
        : base(objectSetName)
    {
        Property(c => c.CustomerID).HasMaxLength(5).IsRequired();
        HasKey(c => c.CustomerID);
        Relationship(c => c.Orders).IsOptional();
    }
}

public class OrderToAddToCustomerMapping : Mapping<OrderToAddToCustomer>
{
    public OrderToAddToCustomerMapping(string objectSetName)
        : base(objectSetName)
    {
        Property(o => o.OrderID).IsIdentity();
        Property(o => o.CustomerID).HasMaxLength(5).IsRequired();
        HasKey(o => o.OrderID);
        Relationship(o => o.Customer)
            .FromProperty(c => c.Orders)
            .HasConstraint((o, c) => o.CustomerID == c.CustomerID);
    }
}

The Mapping Role

public class CustomerToAddOrderMappingRole :
        IMappingRole<ICustomerToAddOrder>
{
    private IMapping[] _mappings;

    public CustomerToAddOrderMappingRole()
    {
        _mappings = new IMapping[]
        {
            new CustomerToAddOrderMapping(“Customers”),
            new OrderToAddToCustomerMapping(“Orders”)
        };
    }

    public IMapping[] Mappings
    {
        get { return _mappings; }
    }
}

The Transaction Isolation Class

public class AddOrderToCustomerIsolation :
        IProvideIsolationLevelFor<ICustomerToAddOrder>
{
    public IsolationLevel GetScopeIsolationForRole
    {
        get { return IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted; }
    }
}

Piggy in the middle

The issue of managing a short or extended session with an ObjectContext is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. Personally I have never had such an issue because they way I have always worked always involved fetching the most current version of the data I required to have my domain model work against it. This way of working has stayed with me through time immemorial, even in my dark old days of using an anaemic domain model.  To be clear I do not pass DTO’s around and reattach them to the ObjectContext, rather refreshing the data and letting the domain model’s business logic take care of the rest.

In Conclusion

My initial planning for the series was that would be take up four posts and therefore it is expected that this may be the last in the series. However, given that Entity Framework 4.0 is still not at RTM and Code Only is still in CTP then it’s possible I may revisit it with a further post sometime in the future.

Does this look like you? Are you surrounded by like minded individuals, sharing a community experience at work with your fellow geeks? Perhaps you have even gone further than that and made a lasting friend or two out of your fellow developers. That certainly describes  the kind of environment that I flourish in and in my more senior years, have worked hard to foster. It’s my experience that software developed in this environment is more cohesive and easier to maintain over the long haul. With he right personality types, social activity at work for geeks  often means talking shop and this leads to a win – win situation for everyone. More ideas begat better ideas, common work patterns begin to evolve; other than that it’s just plain more enjoyable.

However I have struck the odd workplace that is the antithesis of what I have just described. Personality bereft work silos, with dead silence abounding throughout the organisation, lack of willingness to work together, fostering a cycle of suspicion and loss of preparedness to work as a team. I have seen enough of this type of work place to know that I can never work in one again.

Of course it’s possible that I have just described your workplace and perhaps even worse than that, it’s the way it is because you designed it to be that way? What kind of work environment do you have? Do the developers at your office communicate with one another vibrantly, rich in tone and timbre, taking coffee breaks together, occasionally going out for lunch and generally taking any office bound social opportunity to debate and discuss geeky things? Do you have a mate at work?

I would really be interested to hear the arguments (if there are any) that make a case for this almost Brechtian bleakness and minimalism in surroundings.

Hot on the heels of Udi’s visit to Melbourne this year (in January), comes another chance to make good if you missed out. Plans are underway for Udi to visit us yet again, this time in Sydney. If your interested check out Udi’s post and register your interest using the link for the proposed Sydney event. If you want to know more about the course you can see the course outline here and read my review which contains links to some further reviews from other attendees in Melbourne earlier this year.