Implementing Domain-Driven Design

Replaceability

In your model an immutable Value should be held as a reference by an Entity as long as its constant state describes the currently correct Whole Value. If that is no longer true, the entire Value is completely replaced with a new Value that does represent the currently correct whole.

The concept of replaceability is readily understood in the context of numbers. Say that you have the concept of a total that is an integer in your domain. If the total is currently set to the value 3 but must now be the value 4, you don’t, of course, modify the integer 3 itself to become the number 4. Instead you simply set the total to the integer 4:

int total = 3; // later... total = 4;

This is obvious, but it helps make a point. In this example ...