Dependency Injection

Dependency Injection:
Why is it awesome
and why should I care?
Nolan Erck

About Me
● Consultant (southofshasta.com)
● Software Development, On-site Training, Design
● Using ColdFusion since 1999 (4.x)
● Other stuff: C++, Java, jQuery, PHP, .NET, HTML5,
Android, you get the idea...
● Manager of SacInteractive
● Reformed Video Game Developer (Grim Fandango,
SimPark, StarWars Rogue Squadron, etc).
● Music Junkie

Today's Agenda
● What is Dependency Injection?
● When/why do I want it in my projects?
● Intro to Bean Management
● Intro to Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP)
● Intro to Inversion of Control (IOC)
● Other info
● Questions

Prerequisites
● Have some experience building classes and
objects.
● Don't need to be an expert.
● Don't need to have used an MVC framework.
● DI frameworks can be totally separate.
● And 1 more thing you need to know...

Prerequisites
● Know that Object Oriented Programming is
hard.
● And some of it is confusing at first.
● And that's NORMAL.

What is Dependency Injection?
● A “design pattern”
● $6 phrase for “a way to organize your classes so
they work together in a flexible way”.
● Like a for() loop, if(), array[]
– Reusable technique, based around objects.
● There are lots of design patterns:
– Dependency Injection is 1 design pattern
– Inversion of Control (IOC), Aspect Oriented Programming
(AOP) and Bean Management are all “variations on that
theme”.
– There are lots of others too.

What is Dependency Injection?
● It's not platform specific.
● Available for ColdFusion, Java, .NET,
JavaScript, etc.
● For today's preso:
● Using mostly pseudocode.
● Some keywords will change.
● All the concepts work the same across libraries and
languages.

Why / When Do I Want
D/I In My Projects?
● Short answer:
When you have lots of classes that talk to each
other, want to keep code organized, and make it
easy to swap different “types” of objects in/out of
your application.

Why / When Do I Want
D/I In My Projects?
● Short answer:
When you have lots of classes that talk to each
other, want to keep code organized, and make it
easy to swap different “types” of objects in/out of
your application.
● Longer answer:
That's what the rest of the slides are for...

Does this mean...
● I have to rebuild my entire app to use D/I?
● No. But you might get more benefits if you make a
few changes to legacy code along the way.
● I have to learn a new way to code all my classes?
● No. You can leave everything as-is.
– The nice thing about D/I is you can use it or not
use it. If you want to write code the “old way” in
part of your app, there's nothing stopping you
from doing so. It will all still work as-is.
● Neat huh? Let's learn a bit more, shall we?

What's a Bean?
A “thing” your D/I framework knows about.
class User{ … }
class DateUtils {…}
In your DI framework:
bean id=”myUser” class=”User”
bean id=”myDateUtils” class=”DateUtils”
(Exact syntax varies between DI libraries.)

Bean Management
class A {
public class A() {...}
}
class B{
public class B(A a)
{ … }
}
class C {
public class C(B b)
{ … }
}
class D{
public class D(C c)
{...}
}
So if I -JUST- want a D object made...

Bean Management
I have to do all this...
A a = new A();
B b = new B( a );
C c = new C( b );
D d = new D( c );
4 lines of code. The first 3 are “boilerplate” to create the
variables I need to make a D.
Multiply that out over all the objects in your app...
= a LOT of boilerplate code!
Another way to say it:
“D depends on A, B and C being made first”.

Bean Management
With a D/I library that does Bean Management, you'd write
something like this instead...
D d = ColdSpring.getBean( “D” );
4 lines of code just became 1. And no more boilerplate stuff!
You tell your D/I framework “I need a D. Go find out what D
depends on, make those as needed, and hand me back D when
you're done.”
(“ColdSpring” is a placeholder here for any D/I framework. They
all work about the same.)

Bean Management
● Quasi Real World Example.
● Mailing department wide messages.
● Mail Service CFC
● Needs a Department CFC to know which
Department is being emailed.
● Department needs a Department DAO for it's SQL
stuff.
● And a SecurityLogin CFC to make sure it's
validated/logged in/whatever.

Bean Management
● Old Way
mySecLogin = CreateObject( “component”, “SecurityLogin”);
myDeptDAO = CreateObject(“component”,“DepartmentDAO”);
dept = CreateObject( “component”, “Department” );
dept.init( mySecLogin, myDeptDAO );
mailSvc = CreateObject( “component”, “MailService” );
mailSvc.init( dept );
mailSvc.sendEmail();

Bean Management
● New Way
ColdSpring.getBean( “mailService” ).sendMail();

Bean Management
● New Way
ColdSpring.getBean( “mailService” ).sendMail();
Yes, 1 line of code.
Yes, it is THAT easy.
(I'm over simplifying a little.)

Bean Management
● So how does the D/I framework “know” that I need an A, B and
C to make a D object?
● Varies a little from framework to framework.
● Configuration based: XML file that “describes” the relationship
between the objects.
● (ColdSpring, Spring)
– Nice for, say, white-box testing w/ hands-on QA team.
● Convention based:
● Works automatically by which folders you store classes in,
and how the classes are named.
● DI/1, WireBox
● Just pick one and try it out, they all do the same core “things”.

Inversion of Control (IOC)
● Fancy term for “flipping” some code around
from the “traditional” or “normal” way you'd build
objects.
● Instead of building an Employee object, then a
Department object, then putting the Employee
IN the Department.
● You say “get me a fully populated/constructed
Department”.
● Magic happens, automatically building the
Employee object for you.

Inversion Of Control (IOC)
class RockGroup
{
private String groupName;
public String getGroupName(){
return groupName;
}
public void setGroupName(String name) {
this.groupName = name;
}
}
No Constructor.
“groupName” is private.
So we have to call the
setter to initialize the
variable with something.

With regular code, we'd do this:
String myBandName = “depeche mode”;
RockGroup rg = new RockGroup();
rg.setGroupName( myBandName );
That works but...
Every time I want to provide a different default
value, I have to change code, and recompile.

What if we could provide that default value in a
“config file”, outside of code?
And whenever we create a RockGroup object, it
automatically gets a default value for
groupName passed in at that instant?
You can!

Using a D/I framework, you can have a “config” that notes default
values for your classes:
<class name=”RockGroup”>
<property name=”groupName” value=”Depeche Mode”/>
</class>
rg = ColdSpring.getBean( “RockGroup” )
...any time I make a RockGroup, it will automatically initialize the
“groupName” variable to the default value I provided. No extra lines of
code. And changing this default is now done in a config file. No
recompiling code to change it!

What about classes inside of other classes?
● AKA “Composition”, the “has a” relationship.
● Kind of the same thing...

class RockGroup{
private String groupName;
public String getGroupName()
{ … }
public void
setGroupName( String name )
{…}
private Musician singer;
public Musician getSinger()
{ … }
public void setSinger( Musician
m ) {…}
}
class Musician{
private String name;
private int yearsSober;
private int age;
public String getName()
{ return name; }
public void setName(String n)
{ this.name = n; }
public int getYearsSober() { … }
public void setYearsSober(int y)
{ … }
public void setAge( int a ){...}
public int getAge(){ return age; }
}

With straight code...
Musician m = new Musician();
m.name = “David Lee Roth”;
m.age = 50;
m.yearsSober = 10;
RockGroup rg = new RockGroup();
rg.setGroupName( “Van Halen” );
rg.setSinger( m );

With D/I...
RockGroup rg = Spring.getBean(“RockGroup”);

The Musician class has a String property, that
gets initialized just like the String property in
RockGroup. Ditto for the “int” properties, etc:
Spring.getBean( “Musician” );
– “name” will always be whatever is in my config for the
Musician class.
<class name=”Musician”>
<property name=”name” value=”David Lee Roth” />
<property name=”age” value=”50” />
<property name=”yearsSober” value=”10” />
</class>

You can also refer to other classes in the config, and “inject” them
into each other, just like we “injected” the String and int into
Musician:
<class name=”Singer” id=”mySingerBean”>
<property name=”name” value=”David Lee Roth” />
</class>
<property name=”groupName” value=”Van Halen” />
<property name=”singer” ref=”mySingerBean” />
</class>

So now when I do this...
rg = DIFramework.getBean( “RockGroup” );
● rg will be fully constructed...
● It will have a “groupName” property set to “Van
Halen”.
● It will have a “singer” property set to “David Lee
Roth”, he'll be 50 years old and 10 years sober.
● 1 line of code, no boilerplate stuff.
● If I want to change those defaults, I don't have to
recompile, I just change a “config” setting.

Swapping out one type of Musician for another doesn't require
recompiling code, just change a config:
<class name=”Singer” id=”singerBean2”>
<property name=”name” value=”Sammy Hagar” />
</class>
<property name=”singer” ref=”singerBean2” />
</class>

Swapping out one type of Musician for another doesn't require
recompiling code, just change a config:
<class name=”Singer” id=”singerBean2”>
<property name=”name” value=”Sammy Hagar” />
</class>
<property name=”singer” ref=”singerBean2” />
</class>
Off topic: discussing if Dave is better/worse than Sammy.

Aspect Oriented
Programming (AOP)

Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP)
● AKA “Cross Cutting”.
● Change the “aspect” of how a function is called.
● Say I have a foo() method.
● Any time foo() is called...
● Automatically...
– Call code before or after foo()
– Wrap some sort of code “around” foo()
● e.g. try/catch blocks
● It no longer just does “foo()”.
● Also does whatever you define as an aspect of
calling foo().

● Example: drawSalesReport()
● In your AOP library:
<func name=”drawSalesReport”>
<aspect before run=”checkIfLoggedIn” />
<aspect after run=”saveToDebugLogFile” />
</func>

● In your code, it USED to look like this:
checkIfLoggedIn();
drawSalesReport( UserID=555,
dtCreated='1/1/2015' );
SaveToDebugLogFile();
What happens NOW is...
DIFramework.runWithAdvice( “drawSalesReport”,
{ UserID=555,
dtCreated='1/1/2015' } );
and that does all 3 things, in correct order.

● But wait, there's more!
● Can also wrap “blocks” of code around each
other, not just function calls before/after each
other.
● e.g. try/catch blocks.

Say I have a query like so:
<cfquery name=”qryGetUsers”>
SELECT * FROM Users
</cfquery>
In Production, I want that wrapped in a
try/catch, but in QA/Development, I don't. (So I
can see the debug output, etc.)

I'd have to set some kind of “flag”:
<cfif isProduction>
<cftry>
SELECT * FROM Users
</cfquery>
<cfcatch> <cflog … /> </cfcatch>
</cftry>
<cfelse>
SELECT * FROM Users
</cfquery>
</cfif>
Duplicate Code!
Remember the DRY rule!

● Instead of calling a getUsers() method directly:
● GetUsers();
● In your AOP library:
<advice around functionName=”getUsersWithAdvice”>
<method name=”getUsers” />
</advice>

<advice around functionName=”getUsersWithAdvice”>
<method name=”getUsers” />
</advice>
function getUsersWithAdvice( funcToRun ) {
if( isProduction )
{
try{
#funcToRun#();
}
catch{ … }
}else{
#funcToRun#();
}

In your code:
DIFramework.runWithAdvice( “getUsers” );
● The if() statement is still there but our
duplicate SQL is gone!

So what's the catch?
● This is maybe a new way of thinking about how
you build your classes.
● Takes some getting used to.
● A little extra “set up” work.
● Naming conventions, or typing some XML.
● Debugging errors can be slower at first.
...but it does make your code more flexible.

Remember...
● You don't have to do this all at once.
● Start with (for example) Bean Management.
● Add other bits as you get comfortable.
● It's not like an MVC framework where the
WHOLE app has to be considered.
● Find 1 tiny spot in your app, add a little DI there.
● Add more in increments, go as you learn.

Also Remember...
● OO Programming is hard.
● It's different than Procedural code.
● Takes getting used to.
● That's NORMAL.
● Nobody learns all this stuff instantly.
● It takes some time.
● (But it is the way most languages are going these
days.)

Other Resources
● Book: Spring In Action (Java)
● Book: Head First Design Patterns
● Framework/1, DI/1 and AOP/1
● ColdSpring documentation
● Good examples, not overwhelming.
● SpringByExample.org
● Java code, but explanation of the general concepts
is pretty good.
● I'm guessing the ColdBox docs are also great
for this too. Those guys like to write!

Questions? Comments?
Ways to reach me...
Email: nolan@southofshasta.com
Twitter: @southofshasta
Blog: southofshasta.com
Thanks!

Dependency Injection

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