Book Image

Learning Dynamics NAV Patterns

By : Marije Brummel
Book Image

Learning Dynamics NAV Patterns

By: Marije Brummel

Overview of this book

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a complete ERP system, which also contains a robust set of development tools to support customization and enhancement. These include an object designer for each of the seven application object types, a business application-oriented programming language with .NET interface capability, a compiler, a debugger, and programming testing language support. Learning Dynamics NAV Patterns will guide you through the NAV way of solving problems. This book will first introduce you to patterns and the software architecture of the NAV and then help you to build an example application. Then, it walks you through the details of architectural patterns, design patterns, and implementation patterns. This book will also talk about anti-patterns and handling legacy code. Finally, it teaches you to build solutions using patterns. Proven patterns and best practices will help you create better solutions that are easy to maintain in larger teams across several locations. It will guide you through combining abstract patterns using easy-to-understand examples and will help you decide which patterns to use in which scenarios.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)
8
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Microsoft Dynamics NAV Design Patterns

The base application that is shipped with Microsoft Dynamics NAV is full of design patterns, general reusable solutions to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. Using these patterns when applicable, not only do you use solutions that have proven to work, but you also create software that people recognize as Dynamics NAV, since it will probably behave the same as the standard software.

The object-oriented patterns

The most well-known object-oriented patterns are those that are documented in the book called Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, which we mentioned earlier in this chapter. Examples of these patterns are Builder, Prototype, Bridge, Singleton, Façade, and Adapter. We reuse some of these names in this book when they resemble the original pattern. Another object-oriented pattern is the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern, which also applies to Dynamics NAV.

Non-object-oriented patterns

The base design patterns from object-oriented programming are pretty much targeted at structuring applications, running as Windows services or applications. With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we get all of that out of the box. We don't have to think of how to get the data from the database, or how to handle concurrency.

For a better understanding of object-oriented patterns and why they don't apply to Dynamics NAV and C/AL, please read and watch the information at http://www.newthinktank.com/2012/08/design-patterns-video-tutorial/.

The functional oriented patterns

The patterns that we use in Dynamics NAV typically are functionally oriented. They are sometimes even focused on the typical ERP problems, such as storage and formatting of address information. They still solve commonly occurring problems.