Learning Domain-Driven Design

Chapter 1. Analyzing Business Domains

If you are anything like me, you love writing code: solving complex problems, coming up with elegant solutions, and constructing whole new worlds by carefully crafting their rules, structures, and behavior. I believe that’s what interested you in domain-driven design (DDD): you want to be better at your craft. This chapter, however, has nothing to do with writing code. In this chapter, you will learn how companies work: why they exist, what goals they are pursuing, and their strategies for achieving their goals.

When I teach this material in my domain-driven design classes, many students actually ask, “Do we need to know this material? We are writing software, not running businesses.” The answer to their question is a resounding “yes.” To design and build an effective solution, you have to understand the problem. The problem, in our context, is the software system we have to build. To understand the problem, you have to understand the context within which it exists—the organization’s business strategy, and what value it seeks to gain by building the software.

In this chapter, you will learn domain-driven design tools for analyzing a company’s business domain and its structure: its core, supporting, and generic subdomains. This material is the groundwork for designing software. In the remaining chapters, you will learn the different ways these concepts affect software design.

What Is a Business Domain?

A business domain defines a company’s ...