Framework as seen from Java, Part 3

Frameworks consist of a number of classes working together, containing some reusable logic, be it presentation-, business- or persistence-logic. In this Blog I will present an example framework that builds homes of any kind, in other words, the framework's logic is "building houses".

As you may guess, the classes working together here will be walls, roofs, doors and so on. To be able to build homes of any type, any new operator in the framework must be encapsulated into a protected factory method. Only that way the framework can be customized and reused entirely. (Exception is the allocation of standard data types like Integer, String, Boolean etc.)

How to Build a Home

Homes can be houses, tents, wooden huts, ... all of them will be built the same way.

So here is that logic in an abstract class. To make it short, I left out the imports and JavaDoc (mind that you always should write documentation for public and protected classes, methods and fields!).

public abstract class Home
{
    public final void build()    {
        System.out.println("==== Starting to build "+this+" ====");
        
        final List<Wall> walls = new ArrayList<>();
        for (int i = 1; i <= 4; i++)
            walls.add(newWall(i));
        
        erectWalls(walls);
        
        walls.get(0).setDoor();
        
        final Roof roof = newRoof();
        coverWithRoof(walls, roof);
        
        System.out.println("==== Finished building "+this+" ====");
    }
    

    protected abstract Wall newWall(int number);
    
    protected abstract Roof newRoof();
    
    
    private void erectWalls(List<Wall> walls) {
        for (Wall wall : walls)
            System.out.println("Erecting wall "+wall);
    }
    
    private void coverWithRoof(List<Wall> walls, Roof roof) {
        System.out.println("Covering with "+roof+": "+walls);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return getClass().getSimpleName();
    }
}

public abstract class Wall
{
    public interface Door
    {
    }
    
    protected final int number;
    
    protected Wall(int number) {
        this.number = number;
    }
    
    protected void setDoor()    {
        final Door door = newDoor();
        System.out.println("Building "+door+" into "+this);
    }
    
    protected abstract Door newDoor();

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return getClass().getSimpleName()+" "+number;
    }
}

Any wall could have a door, modelled as inner interface. Again a factory method is responsible for creating it, in case setDoor() gets called:

Here comes the roof, as interface, so that walls also could implement roofs, useful for tents.

1
2
3

public interface Roof
{
}

Frameworking a House

Until now we just got abstract classes and interfaces. Not a very good shelter, time to get concrete :-)

public class House extends Home
{
    @Override
    protected Wall newWall(int number) {
        return new BrickWall(number);
    }
 
    @Override
    protected Roof newRoof() {
        return new TiledRoof();
    }
}

Just the factory methods are implemented, and the according classes. Very short and concise.

public class BrickWall extends Wall
{
    private static class WoodenDoor implements Door
    {
        @Override
        public String toString() {
            return getClass().getSimpleName();
        }
    }
    
    
    public BrickWall(int number) {
        super(number);
    }
    
    @Override
    protected Door newDoor() {
        return new WoodenDoor();
    }
    
}

This wall is made of bricks and got a wooden door. The following roof is covered with tiles.

public class TiledRoof implements Roof
{
    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return getClass().getSimpleName();
    }
}

public class Demo
{
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new House().build();
    }
}

Frameworking a Tent

public class Tent extends Home
{
    @Override
    protected Wall newWall(int number) {
        return new TextileWall(number);
    }

    @Override
    protected Roof newRoof() {
        return new TextileWall(0);
    }

}

A wall is used also as roof of the tent. There is no separate door, it is cut into the wall, thus the setDoor() override.

public class TextileWall extends Wall implements Roof
{
    public TextileWall(int number) {
        super(number);
    }
    
    @Override
    protected void setDoor() {
        System.out.println("Cutting a zipper door into "+this);
    }
    
    @Override
    protected Door newDoor() {
        return null;
    }
}

public class Demo
{
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Tent().build();
    }
}

Frameworking a Phantasy Home

What can be done with named classes can also be done using anonymous classes. Following example shows the real power of overriding.

Thanks to factory-methods you can customize the framework down to any level, here down to the wall's door. Mind how overrides nest into other overrides. Method overrides contain anonymous class overrides, that again contain method overrides.

Might be a little hard to read, but this is the framework style. Summit of OO in my opinion, because you can reuse not just one class but a whole set of them.

public class Demo
{
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Home()  {
            @Override
            protected Roof newRoof() {
                return new Roof() {
                    public String toString() {
                        return "Phantasy Roof";
                    }
                };
            }
            
            @Override
            protected Wall newWall(int number) {
                return new Wall(number) {
                    @Override
                    protected Door newDoor() {
                        return new Door()   {
                            public String toString() {
                                return "Phantasy Door";
                            }
                        };
                    }
                    public String toString() {
                        return "Phantasy Wall "+number;
                    }
                };
            }
            
            public String toString() {
                return "Phantasy Home";
            }
        }.build();
    }
}

So, isn't frameworking an alternative to networking :-?
You just need to state what you want, the framework will call you and make something of whatever you return.