DDD - Modelling the Domain - Modules

Software systems could become very complex with a large domain model which makes it overwhelming to see the whole picture. The concept of a Module is a design element in many programming languages (in Java they are called Packages and in C# Namespaces) to divide code for managing complexity and assisting in code reuse. Typically, programming language textbooks promote modules mainly as a code organization tool.

On the contrary, Domain-Driven Design raises the importance of modules by considering them part of our model and using them to divide concepts (Evans, 2003). As Evans (2003) puts it “there should be low coupling between modules and high cohesion within them”. The last phrase is very familiar and is the cornerstone of object-oriented programming, that is low coupling between classes and high cohesion within them (Martin, 2009). Although, the role of modules is self-evident, many application frameworks direct developers in grouping code technically and not conceptually, e.g. by placing all interfaces in a single module, all classes that deal with business logic in another module, all classes that deal with data access in another module and so on.

DDD Modules should have meaningful names that are part of the Ubiquitous Language (Evans, 2003). In addition, modules should evolve in parallel with the code elements that are contained and not remain static, i.e. we might have to refactor modules because our conceptual view is different by the introduction of new concepts in the domain model (Evans, 2003; Vernon, 2013).

In the Python programming language, the highest level organisational unit is called a Module (Lutz, 2013). In fact, any file that contains Python functions, classes, data etc is a module which could import and use other modules. Thus, a Python Module and a DDD Module are matching one to one.

References

• Evans, E. (2003) Domain-Driven Design: Tacking Complexity In the Heart of Software. Boston: Addison-Wesley.
• Lutz, M. (2013) Learning Python. Beijing: O'Reilly.
• Martin, R. (2009) Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Boston: Prentice Hall.
• Vernon, V. (2013) Implementing Domain-Driven Design. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

This post is an excerpt of my MSc Thesis titled "Applying Domain-Driven Design in Python - designing a self-hosted Read-it-Later service" (January 2014).