Domain-driven design
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Domain-driven design (DDD) is a major software design approach, focusing on modeling software to match a domain according to input from that domain's experts. DDD is against the idea of having a single unified model; instead it divides a large system into bounded contexts, each of which have their own model.
Under domain-driven design, the structure and language of software code (class names, class methods, class variables) should match the business domain. For example: if software processes loan applications, it might have classes like "loan application", "customers", and methods such as "accept offer" and "withdraw".
Domain-driven design is predicated on the following goals:
- placing the project's primary focus on the core domain and domain logic layer;
- basing complex designs on a model of the domain;
- initiating a creative collaboration between technical and domain experts to iteratively refine a conceptual model that addresses particular domain problems.
Critics of domain-driven design argue that developers must typically implement a great deal of isolation and encapsulation to maintain the model as a pure and helpful construct. While domain-driven design provides benefits such as maintainability, Microsoft recommends it only for complex domains where the model provides clear benefits in formulating a common understanding of the domain.
The term was coined by Eric Evans in his book of the same name published in 2003.