The focus of this episode on software architecture patterns is the microkernel pattern.  It is a common way to build on core technology without the need for future design.  Once the plugin interface is defined, the sky is the limit for enhancements and upgrades.  You do all of this without impacting that core. The Microkernel Pattern Defined This approach starts with a core piece of functionality.  Next, other components are added to it.  We see this pattern utilized in many cloud products and commercial software.  The core can be protected, and then plugins farmed out.  Also, customers can purchase the core and then plugins a la carte.  In a technical sense, the core provides shared functionality across the system.  The... Read more

We continue our season of software architecture patterns and more by reviewing the interpreter pattern.  This one may seem familiar.  It has been discussed in other areas of software development.  However, it is worth refreshing our memory on this helpful solution. The Interpreter Pattern Defined The way this works is to start from a client, and given a context; we receive an expression.  That may be a very simple or complex series of “sentences.”  Next, the expression is broken down into parts that are individually interpreted.  Finally, the combined results are sent back.  That gives us yet another pattern that involves breaking the big problem down into smaller pieces.  Thus, it is easier to solve. Applying The Pattern There are... Read more

The blackboard pattern is arguably the least known among our first group.  This is a pattern that is not common because it is best used with some specialized tasks.  However, you may be familiar with it if you work in speech recognition, vehicle tracking, sonar signals interpretation, or similar open-ended forms of searching and matching. The Blackboard Pattern Defined Three appears to be the magic number for parts of an architectural pattern.  Likewise, this pattern again has three concepts that make it up.  There is the blackboard, the knowledge source, and the control.  These parts work together to match data to a solution. The Blackboard pattern uses the idea of a blackboard as a place to hold global data.  We... Read more

We often see the Event Bus architectural pattern in notification frameworks and Android development.  This approach provides us with a way to have a news feed mechanism across clients and processes. The Event Bus Pattern Defined There are three main players in this event bus pattern.  The players are the sources, the bus, and the listeners.  Within the bus, there are channels.  In this pattern, the listeners subscribe to a channel or channels.  Likewise, the sources post messages to one or more of these.  That allows sources to note something happened.  Likewise, any subscribers will see it.  Note that this is a one-way architecture.  Listeners will not communicate directly with sources.  However, you could have a return bus that listeners... Read more