Lecture 05

Domain Models

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 Why do this?

• If
you don’t understand the domain, you

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can’t program for it effectively(terms like in
specific business)

• Lower
the representational gap between
mental model and software model

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 Objectives

• Identifyconceptual classes related to the

current iteration( Product, Customer, Order, Cart )

• Create an initial domain model(like Customer places

an Order)

• Modelappropriate attributes and

associations (Product has name, price, productID)

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 What is a Domain Model?

• Illustrates
noteworthy concepts in a domain.
That, defines what the system is about
• Modelsthe things in your system and the
way they relate to each other
•A domain model is conceptual, not a
software artifact
•A visual dictionary

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 What’s the Difference?

Conceptual Software Artifacts:

Class:
Sale SalesDatabase

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amt
Sale
item
Double amt;
Item item;
void print()

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 Business Object Model

• Class diagrams with no methods, just

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fields
• May show domain objects
• Associations between classes
• Attributes of conceptual classes

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 Domain Model, visually

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 Conceptual Classes

• An idea, thing, or object

• Symbol—Words or images representing a
conceptual class
• Intension—Definition of a conceptual class
• Extension—The set of examples to which
the class applies
• It is not a data model

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How to Create a Domain
Model

• Find the conceptual classes

• Draw them as classes in a UML class
diagram

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• Add associations necessary to record
relationships
• Addattributes necessary for information to
be preserved
• Use
existing names, the vocabulary of the
domain
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How do I find Conceptual
Classes?
• Reuse or modify existing models. If there are
published models, prior art, or books, use them
• Use a category list (Table 9.1)

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• Identify noun phrases (linguistic analysis)

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 Noun Phrase Identification
• Consider the following problem description, analyzed for Subjects, Verbs,
Objects:
The ATM verifies whether the customer's card number and PIN are correct.
S V O O O
If it is, then the customer can check the account balance, deposit cash, and withdraw

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cash.
S V O V O V
O
Checking the balance simply displays the account balance.
S O V O
Depositing asks the customer to enter the amount, then updates the account balance.
S V O V O V O
Withdraw cash asks the customer for the amount to withdraw; if the account has
enough cash,
S O V O O V S
V O
the account balance is updated. The ATM prints the customer’s account balance on a
receipt.
O
O
V S V O 11
 Noun Phrases
Analyze each subject and object as follows:
• Does it represent a person performing an action? Then it’s an
actor, ‘R’.

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• Is it also a verb (such as ‘deposit’)? Then it may be a method,
‘M’.

• Is it a simple value, such as ‘color’ (string) or ‘money’

(number)?
Then it is probably an attribute, ‘A’.
• Which NPs are unmarked? Make it ‘C’ for class.
Verbs can also be classes, for example:
• Deposit is a class if it retains state information

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Where are the Terms?
• Some are in the use case
• Some come from domain experts
• Natural language is imprecise and ambiguous, so

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you need to use judgment

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 POS example
You can create a list, or you can use a set of class diagrams, per the table
below

Register Item Store Sale

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Sales
Cashier Customer Manager
LineItem

Product Product
Payment
Catalog Specification

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 Model
Monopoly Game Domain

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Attributes vs. Classes
• Common mistake: representing something as an
attribute when it should have been a class.
• “If we do not think of some conceptual class X as a
number or text in the real world, it should probably

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be a class, not an attribute.”
• Should “store” be an attribute of Sale or should it be
a class?

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Description Classes
• A description class contains information that
describes something else
• E. g. Product Description records the price, picture,
text description (and what else?) of an item

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Why Use Them?
• If we keep all the information in, say, a sales line
item, once all of that item are sold, there is no
record of what the item was
• How does this relate to database design?

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Associations
• Relationship between (instances of) classes that
indicates some interesting and meaningful
connection
• What objects need memory of a relationship?

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• In Monopoly, where each piece is and which player
owns which token
• No need to remember numbers on the dice

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Associations (cont’d)
• Avoid having too many; this adds communication
paths and complexity
• Will they be implemented in software?

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• UML: Line between classes with the name of the
association
• Name with VerbPhrase-ClassName format. E. g.
Sale Paid By CashPayment
• Each end of an association is called a Role

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Associations (cont’d)
• Multiplicity: how many instances of
class A can be associated with an
instance of class B.
• E. g. an instance of Store can be

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associated with many (zero or more)
Items
• This is at a particular moment, not
over time
• Discussion of 0..1 or 1
• Multiple associations: Flight FliesTo and
FliesFrom an airport
• Common Associations List on p. 155
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 Attributes
• It is useful to identify those attributes of conceptual classes that are
needed to satisfy the information requirements of the current
scenarios under development.
• An Attribute is a logical data value of an object
• You can also have derived attributes denoted by / before the name

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• Full syntax: visibility Name : type multiplicity = default {property
string}
• +pi : Real=3.14159 {read-only}

Sale
attributes
date
startTime : Time

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Attribute Types
• Usually primitive data types, as well as things like
Color, DateTime, Zip code, etc. The latter are
specializations of primitive types
• It should not normally be a class, such as Sale or

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Airport
• Relate conceptual classes with an association, not
an attribute. No foreign keys
• Attributes in code are okay

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New Data Type Classes
• Things like ItemID or ClaimNumber are not always
simple data types, even though they look like them
• If the attribute contains separable pieces, it can be
its own class. For example, a Claim Number has the

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state, year, and day encoded in it
• If it has operations associated with it

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New Data Type Classes
(cont’d)
• If it has other attributes, such as a sale price
• If it has units, such as currency
• If it is an abstraction of one or more types with

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these properties

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Is the Domain Model
Correct?
• No, but it’s a good approximation
• It gets better with each iteration; don’t try to get it
all at once

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• Domain model usually done in the elaboration phase

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