Design marker
Encyclopedia
In software engineering
, a design marker is a technique of documenting design choices in source code
using the Marker Interface pattern
. Marker interfaces have traditionally been limited to those interfaces intended for explicit, runtime verification (normally via instanceof). A design marker is a marker interface used to document a design choice. In Java
programs the design choice is documented in the marker interface's Javadoc
documentation.
Many choices made at software design time cannot be directly expressed in today's implementation languages like C# and Java. These design choices (known by names like Design Pattern
, Design Contract, Refactoring
, Effective Programming Idioms, Blueprints, etc.) must be implemented via programming and naming conventions, because they go beyond the built-in functionality of production programming languages. The consequences of this limitation conspire over time to erode design investments as well as to promote a false segregation between the designer and implementer mindsets.
Two independent proposals recognize these problems and give the same basic strategies for tackling them. Until now, the budding Explicit Programming movement has been linked to the use of an experimental Java research tool called ELIDE. The Design Markers technique requires only standard Javadoc
-like tools to garner many of the benefits of Explicit Programming.
Software engineering
Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software...
, a design marker is a technique of documenting design choices in source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
using the Marker Interface pattern
Marker interface pattern
The marker interface pattern is a design pattern in computer science, used with languages that provide run-time type information about objects...
. Marker interfaces have traditionally been limited to those interfaces intended for explicit, runtime verification (normally via instanceof). A design marker is a marker interface used to document a design choice. In Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
programs the design choice is documented in the marker interface's Javadoc
Javadoc
Javadoc is a documentation generator from Sun Microsystems for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code.The "doc comments" format used by Javadoc is the de facto industry standard for documenting Java classes. Some IDEs, such as Netbeans and Eclipse automatically generate...
documentation.
Many choices made at software design time cannot be directly expressed in today's implementation languages like C# and Java. These design choices (known by names like Design Pattern
Design pattern
A design pattern in architecture and computer science is a formal way of documenting a solution to a design problem in a particular field of expertise. The idea was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander in the field of architecture and has been adapted for various other disciplines,...
, Design Contract, Refactoring
Refactoring
Code refactoring is "disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior", undertaken in order to improve some of the nonfunctional attributes of the software....
, Effective Programming Idioms, Blueprints, etc.) must be implemented via programming and naming conventions, because they go beyond the built-in functionality of production programming languages. The consequences of this limitation conspire over time to erode design investments as well as to promote a false segregation between the designer and implementer mindsets.
Two independent proposals recognize these problems and give the same basic strategies for tackling them. Until now, the budding Explicit Programming movement has been linked to the use of an experimental Java research tool called ELIDE. The Design Markers technique requires only standard Javadoc
Javadoc
Javadoc is a documentation generator from Sun Microsystems for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code.The "doc comments" format used by Javadoc is the de facto industry standard for documenting Java classes. Some IDEs, such as Netbeans and Eclipse automatically generate...
-like tools to garner many of the benefits of Explicit Programming.