Do you have an Application Programming Model?
If you have an application programming model, your answer is probably a resounding “Yes!”
If you don’t have an application programming model, you’re probably wondering “What is it? And why is everyone so excited about it?”
In this post, we’ll go over exactly what an application programming model is, how it works, and what it can do for your software development team.
What is an Application Programming Model?
In this context, an application programming model is the foundational code layer that your software system rests on. The model encapsulates and insulates your applications from the underlying platform, as well as some of the technologies and frameworks.
It is often referred to as “iFX” and supplies you with ready-made plumbing for interacting with Web APIs, Message Brokers, Caching Services, Logging, and more. It also includes connectivity with your own distributed services.
More Than Just a Starting Point
With a robust programming model, you can do more than just hit the ground running. You can start building features that add business value almost immediately.
Usually, at the start of a software project, you spend time establishing some basic plumbing, setting up your IoC container, adding your logging framework, and performing basic scaffolding for the solution. These are critical steps, but they also take up valuable time.
The application programming model does all of those steps for you. It accelerates your software development project and enables you to build features and even entire systems in a fraction of the time.
Independence from Platform
An application programming model, properly employed, gives you independence from your platform. This becomes extremely valuable when you are faced with the need to switch platforms.
Without this application abstraction, you will be required to completely rewrite all of your software systems for your next platform. This is extremely costly and time-consuming, which is why changing platforms is often avoided.
However, as the software development and technology industry continues to evolve, it is only a matter of time before changing platforms becomes a necessity.
The Ability to Lift and Shift Your Applications
Platform independence provides the luxury to lift and shift your whole application from one platform to another with minimal retooling and utility changes. It also allows you to run the same application on multiple platforms, and support them all easily.
Independence from Technology and Frameworks
In the same fashion, an application programming model abstracts away your frameworks and many of the technologies you interact with.
For example, we typically have logging/configuration frameworks and queuing technologies that may have many different implementation providers specific to our platform. Perhaps your systems are on-premises, and you leverage MSMQ or RabbitMQ. When you deploy the same application to the cloud, you need to replace it with the Azure Service Bus.
The application programming model provides the necessary abstractions, which means that you can code against the same interfaces regardless of how your system is hosted.
Ready-made Off the Shelf Plumbing
Another key benefit of using an application programming model is the built-in remoting capabilities.
Usually, your distributed services in all your applications interact through some remoting layer. The choice and selection of the type of transport should be easily configurable and independent of your platform.
Proxies, listeners, and different interaction modes like request/response, one-way, and events can all be facilitated through your application programming model.
Become an Industry Leader
Leveraging an application programming model is one of the key differences between a high-performing software development team and one that doesn’t have the same design and technical leadership.
Premier Software Systems is here to provide efficient software development team training that transforms your development process. An application programming model and training in how to use it can take your development team from good to great.
Schedule a call with us today to see how we can help you become a difference-maker and stand out as an industry leader!