Autofac Conventions for Generic Types - dependency-injection

Im new to Autofac and finding myself repeating a lot of this....
builder.RegisterType<ConcreteService<EntityA>>().As<IService<EntityA>>();
builder.RegisterType<ConcreteService<EntityB>>().As<IService<EntityB>>();
EntityA, EntityB, EntityC and so on.. all inherit from EntityBase, so i want to instruct Autofac to always use ConcreteService<x> when it needs to create an implementation of IService<x> as long as x inherits from EntityBase
I am aware that the AssemblyScanner in Autofac may be able to help with this, although i am struggling to find documentation that goes far enough into it.
Any pointers appreciated.

I think the answer to this question (stackoverflow) may also answer your question.

Related

Virtual function or virtual method, which one is appropriate?

I have been to many interviews, where always a question interviewers used to ask "Do you know virtual function?"
I always wonder why experienced programmer/developer use function with virtual. As much I know.. not all functions can be virtual, only those functions which are part of any class/struct can be virtual.
So I think "Function is superset and method is subset. Not all functions can be methods but, all methods are functions. Therefore it would be appropriate to use "virtual method" not "virtual function".
Can somebody explain, why most of the experienced programmer and even technical books write use "virtual function" not "virtual method"?
Technically methods are those that belong to classes and functions are the ones that don't, but like with other things that are so general and common, people end up mixing up the terminology and in the end "function" and "method" can both refer to one thing or the other. That's pretty much the answer to your question... In the end, terminology is defined by how people use it, not by the original intended meanings.
Perhaps this link can help you :-
http://www.dotnet-tricks.com/Tutorial/oops/4a0J170612-Difference-between-function-and-method.html
Yes, linguistically or logically the functions are not the part of the class, but methods are the members of the class.
Or, in more simple words, methods don't have their own existence, they belong to class. But the functions have their own existence.
I hope this might also have clarified your doubts.

Dependency Injection with Ninject, MVC 3 and using the Service Locator Pattern

Something that has been bugging me since I read an answer on another stackoverflow question (the precise one eludes me now) where a user stated something like "If you're calling the Service Locator, you're doing it wrong."
It was someone with a high reputation (in the hundred thousands, I think) so I tend to think this person might know what they're talking about. I've been using DI for my projects since I first started learning about it and how well it relates to Unit Testing and what not. It's something I'm fairly comfortable with now and I think I know what I'm doing.
However, there are a lot of places where I've been using the Service Locator to resolve dependencies in my project. Once prime example comes from my ModelBinder implementations.
Example of a typical model binder.
public class FileModelBinder : IModelBinder {
public object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext,
ModelBindingContext bindingContext) {
ValueProviderResult value = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue("id");
IDataContext db = Services.Current.GetService<IDataContext>();
return db.Files.SingleOrDefault(i => i.Id == id.AttemptedValue);
}
}
not a real implementation - just a quick example
Since the ModelBinder implementation requires a new instance when a Binder is first requested, it's impossible to use Dependency Injection on the constructor for this particular implementation.
It's this way in a lot of my classes. Another example is that of a Cache Expiration process that runs a method whenever a cache object expires in my website. I run a bunch of database calls and what not. There too I'm using a Service Locator to get the required dependency.
Another issue I had recently (that I posted a question on here about) was that all my controllers required an instance of IDataContext which I used DI for - but one action method required a different instance of IDataContext. Luckily Ninject came to the rescue with a named dependency. However, this felt like a kludge and not a real solution.
I thought I, at least, understood the concept of Separation of Concerns reasonably well but there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with how I understand Dependency Injection and the Service Locator Pattern - and I don't know what that is.
The way I currently understand it - and this could be wrong as well - is that, at least in MVC, the ControllerFactory looks for a Constructor for a Controller and calls the Service Locator itself to get the required dependencies and then passes them in. However, I can understand that not all classes and what not have a Factory to create them. So it seems to me that some Service Locator pattern is acceptable...but...
When is it not acceptable?
What sort of pattern should I be on the look out for when I should rethink how I'm using the Service Locator Pattern?
Is my ModelBinder implementation wrong? If so, what do I need to learn to fix it?
In another question along the lines of this one user Mark Seemann recommended an Abstract Factory - How does this relate?
I guess that's it - I can't really think of any other question to help my understanding but any extra information is greatly appreciated.
I understand that DI might not be the answer to everything and I might be going overboard in how I implement it, however, it seems to work the way I expect it to with Unit Testing and what not.
I'm not looking for code to fix my example implementation - I'm looking to learn, looking for an explanation to fix my flawed understanding.
I wish stackoverflow.com had the ability to save draft questions. I also hope whoever answers this question gets the appropriate amount of reputation for answering this question as I think I'm asking for a lot. Thanks, in advance.
Consider the following:
public class MyClass
{
IMyInterface _myInterface;
IMyOtherInterface _myOtherInterface;
public MyClass(IMyInterface myInterface, IMyOtherInterface myOtherInterface)
{
// Foo
_myInterface = myInterface;
_myOtherInterface = myOtherInterface;
}
}
With this design I am able to express the dependency requirements for my type. The type itself isn't responsible for knowing how to instantiate any of the dependencies, they are given to it (injected) by whatever resolving mechanism is used [typically an IoC container]. Whereas:
public class MyClass
{
IMyInterface _myInterface;
IMyOtherInterface _myOtherInterface;
public MyClass()
{
// Bar
_myInterface = ServiceLocator.Resolve<IMyInterface>();
_myOtherInterface = ServiceLocator.Resolve<IMyOtherInterface>();
}
}
Our class is now dependent on creating the specfic instances, but via delegation to a service locator. In this sense, Service Location can be considered an anti-pattern because you're not exposing dependencies, but you are allowing problems which can be caught through compilation to bubble up into runtime. (A good read is here). You hiding complexities.
The choice between one or the other really depends on what your building on top of and the services it provides. Typically if you are building an application from scratch, I would choose DI all the time. It improves maintainability, promotes modularity and makes testing types a whole lot easier. But, taking ASP.NET MVC3 as an example, you could easily implement SL as its baked into the design.
You can always go for a composite design where you could use IoC/DI with SL, much like using the Common Services Locator. You component parts could be wired up through DI, but exposed through SL. You could even throw composition into the mix and use something like the Managed Extensibility Framework (which itself supports DI, but can also be wired to other IoC containers or service locators). It's a big design choice to make, generally my recommendation would be for IoC/DI where possible.
Your specific design I wouldn't say is wrong. In this instance, your code is not responsible for creating an instance of the model binder itself, that's up to the framework so you have no control over that but your use of the service locator could probably be easily changed to access an IoC container. But the action of calling resolve on the IoC container...would you not consider that service location?
With an abstract factory pattern the factory is specialised at creating specific types. You don't register types for resolution, you essentially register an abstract factory and that builds any types that you may require. With a Service Locator it is designed to locate services and return those instances. Similar from an convention point of view, but very different in behaviour.

Is there a dependency injection framework for Smalltalk?

I'm running Pharo and I'm just in a use case that sort of screams for Dependency Injection à la Guice. Is there something similar for Smalltalk?
I understand that you can sort of do it all by foot, by just passing in your dependencies explicitly. But that feels awkward and verbose to me.
There is a Smalltalk dialect with strong emphasis on dependency injection. It extends the language such that not only method names but also class names use a dynamic lookup. The novel lookup of class names is most similar to that of methods, except that bubbles up through a series of nested classes rather than along an inheritance chain. Thus you can change the injected classes by changing the nesting environment.
To learn more about the dialect, follow this link.
With Guice, it looks like you define your classes to take certain interfaces as constructor parameters. Then you tell Guice "this interface maps to that class implementing said interface".
That sort've thing is completely unnecessary in Smalltalk, because Smalltalk classes only care about protocols.
If we translated the example into Smalltalk, we could pass any object we liked into the RealBillingService's constructor, as long as that object responded to #logChargeResult: and #logConnectException:, i.e., as long as that object implemented the protocol required of a TransactionLog.
Here's a link to a similar answer to the above.
I am not really an expert but I found this article on google: http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2006/05/05/144172.aspx
I hope this will lead you in the right direction.
:)

Rhino.Commons with StructureMap

Has anybody tried to use StructureMap for IoC with Rhino.Commons?
Thanks
Windsor is deeply rooted in Rhino Commons, a search for "Windsor" in the source code gives back 45 files. Binsor, for example, is very specific to Windsor. However, it shouldn't be very difficult to refactor some parts of Rhino.Commons to use CommonServiceLocator instead of Windsor, effectively making it container-provider-independent.
It's unlikely that you want all of Rhino.Commons, so my question to you is: what part(s) of Rhino.Commons do you need?
Looking at the source code I don't see how it would be possible. The IoC.Initialize() method takes in an IWindsorContainer.

Any need for dependency injection in Dynamic Languages?

In order to write testable C# code, I use DI heavily.
However lately I've been messing around with IronPython and found that as you can mock any methods/classes/functions etc... you like, the need for DI is gone.
Is this the case for dynamic langagues such as Python?
Instead of:
class Person(Address) {
...
You can have:
class Person() {
...
// Address initialised in here.
For dynamic languages and therefore following manaual DI for dynamic langagues is simply not needed.
Any advice on this?
Dependency Injection is also about how you wire things together --- which has nothing to do about the mockability of depended-on objects. There's a difference between having a Foo-instance that needs a Bar-connection of some kind instantiate it directly and having it completely ignore how it gets that connection as long as it has it.
If you use dependency injection you also gain better testability. But the converse isn't true. Easier testability by being able to overwrite anything doesn't bring the other advantages of dependency injection. There are many component/DI-frameworks for Python available exactly for these reasons.
I strongly disagree with your statement that Dependency Injection is not needed in dynamically typed languages. The reasons for why DI is useful and necessary are completely independent of the typing discipline of the language.
The main difference is that DI in dynamically typed languages is easy and painless: you don't need a heavyweight framework and a gazillion lines of XML configuration.
In Ruby, for example, there are only two DI frameworks. Both were written by a Java programmer. Neither of the two frameworks is used by a single project. Not even by the author of those frameworks.
However, DI is used all over the place in Ruby.
Jamis Buck, who is the author of both of those frameworks gave a talk called Recovering from Enterprise at RubyConf 2008 about how and why he wrote those frameworks and why that was a bad idea, which is well worth watching. There’s also an accompanying blog post if you’d like to read. (Just substitute “Python” everytime he says “Ruby” and everything will be just as valid.)
I'll try again. My last answer missed the question by a mile and zoomed way off topic.
Using pseudo-code, dependency Injection says out with:
class Person
def Chat() {
someOperation("X","Y","Z")
end
end
...
Person.new().Chat()
and in with:
class Person
initialize(a,b,c)
#a=a
#b=b
#c=c
end
def Chat()
someOperation(#a,#b,#c)
end
end
...
Person.new("X","Y","Z").Chat()
,., and generally in with putting the object and the call into different files for SCM purposes.
Whether "X", "Y" or "Z" are mockable (...if they were instead objects...(!)...(!)...) have nothing at all to do with whether DI is good. Really. :-)
DI is just easier in Python or Ruby, like a lot of other tasks, because there's more of a scripting approach, like Jörg says; and also of course less of a culture and a tendency saying that constants and adapters are to get populated into models and global constants.
In practical terms for me DI is the first step towards separating out those application parameters, API constants and factories into separate files to help make your revision tracking report look less spaghetti-like ("Were those extra checkins on the AppController to change the configuration..? Or to update the code...?") and more informing, and more easy to read.
My recommendation: Keep using DI... :-)
I think you're presenting a question that seems to be about best practice but is actually about run-time performance.
Get rid of dependency injection? How can a software release manager sleep at night?
The tests for function to perform must surely slow the program down one or two tads.
// my generic function entry point - IronPython
if func="a":
...
if func="b":
...
if func="c":
...
You can use standard Python with classes... or you can assign function pointers to function pointer members. Just what kind of a beast is it...?? I know, I know. Python I think is difficult to define but I like it. And I like and think highly of dependency injection, not that I've had long where I'd think to assign such a lengthy name to the practice.

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