Modular Development

• Modularity
• Creating Functional Areas
• Using the Cairngorm Module Library
• Modular applications and Developing and loading sub-applications of Chaptor 3 Application Architecture within the Flex 4 Developer Guide
• How to Unload Modules Effectively

What is Modularity?

Modularity is something more general than the Flex Module and ModuleLoader components. These are a form of modularity, but the principle is broader: modularity is about separating applications into smaller units that can be developed and deployed independently. In the context of Flex, these units might be modules, sub-applications or any other kind of encapsulated content. A modular application usually has a structure:

In the figure above, the application consists of a thin shell that loads three modules: Dashboard, Contacts and Messages. These modules represent different functional areas of the application. Their implementation detail is independent of one another. The application shell is responsible for loading and laying out the modules, and providing a means of communication between them. This might be a global data model, a registry of interfaces, or in the case of the illustration above, some kind of message bus.

What are the Benefits of Modularization?

Modularization can bring benefits for end-users of an application and also for the teams that develop and deliver them; Here are some of the benefits:

• A module can be developed, tested and profiled in relative isolation.
• Build times are shortened, since changes to one module don't require other modules or the shell application to be recompiled.
• Modules can be loaded on demand, so the initial download for an application is smaller.
• If a user never uses the features of one module, that module need not be loaded.
• Individual modules can be deployed into production, instead of redeploying an entire application.
• Different modules can be loaded for different users based on their entitlements.
• A module is easier to understand and maintain than a monolithic application, since it is more functionally cohesion.
• The interactions between modules can be confined to a thin API, reducing regression as an application grows.
  The benefits in terms of architecture and development efficiency are arguably the most important. Small groups of developers can work on individual modules. The contracts of communication between modules can be agreed, so the implementation is free to change and improve without regression.

Cairngorm 3 and Modularization

One of the key messages of the Cairngorm 3 reference architecture is to separate applications into distinct functional areas that can be developed independently; in other words a modular architecture, where each functional area is a module. The Cairngorm guidelines recommend that communication between functional areas takes place through a thin API that might consist of interfaces, events and data transfer objects. This approach minimizes dependencies between the distinct functional areas of an application. It promotes what Robert Martin terms "good dependencies" in the direction of stability. More details can be found in the Creating Functional Areas guideline .

Framework Provisions for Modularization

Many Flex frameworks provide features that support modularity. Parsley , Spring ActionScript , Swiz , Potomac , PureMVC all offer support in varying degrees. The Cairngorm Module Library builds on top of Parsley's support for modularity.

The Enterprise Solution: Adobe LiveCycle Mosaic ES2

LiveCycle Mosaic ES2 is far more than a modularity framework, but modularity is an important part of its design. It's a client-and-server-side technology for building applications by composition, combining different pieces into personalized views that are focussed on the activities that different users perform. On the server-side, reusable application assets can be stored and shared, while LiveCycle DataServices is available for integrating with different data sources. On the client-side, applications are assembled from different tiles, that can be developed from scratch or adapted from existing Flex and HTML applications. A customizable shell application loads and lays out the tiles, and the framework provides a publish-subscribe messaging API for communication between them. For more details about the Adobe enterprise solution to modularity, refer to the LiveCycle Mosaic ES2 product page .

Conclusion

As we attempt to build bigger and better applications in Flex and AIR, the topic of modularity becomes more important to ensure efficient development, scalability and maintainability. It is vital to be able to separate portions of a large application so they can be developed, tested and deployed independently. The Flex SDK provides some simple means of modularization with Modules and Sub-Applications, and some frameworks build on top of these to provide more features. Furthermore, Adobe has now released an enterprise solution in LiveCycle Mosaic ES2 that provides the infrastructure for rapidly developing and deploying RIAs to the browser and desktop in a modular way.

References

Martin, R. Stability. Retrieved May 15, 2010 from http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/stability.pdf