In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, providing generic functionality, can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard way to build and deploy applications and is a universal, reusable software environment that provides particular functionality as part of a larger software platform to facilitate the development of software applications, products and solutions.
Frameworks have key distinguishing features that separate them from normal libraries:
inversion of control: In a framework, unlike in libraries or in standard user applications, the overall program's flow of control is not dictated by the caller, but by the framework.[1] This is usually achieved with the Template Method Pattern.
default behaviour: This can be provided with the invariant methods of the Template Method Pattern in an abstract class which is provided by the framework.
extensibility: A user can extend the framework–usually by selective overriding–or programmers can add specialized user code to provide specific functionality. This is usually achieved by a hook method in a subclass that overrides a template method in the superclass.
non-modifiable framework code: The framework code, in general, is not supposed to be modified, while accepting user-implemented extensions. In other words, users can extend the framework, but cannot modify its code.
The designers of software frameworks aim to facilitate software developments by allowing designers and programmers to devote their time to meeting software requirements rather than dealing with the more standard low-level details of providing a working system, thereby reducing overall development time.[2] For example, a team using a web framework to develop a banking website can focus on writing code particular to banking rather than the mechanics of request handling and state management.
Frameworks often add to the size of programs, a phenomenon termed "code bloat". Due to customer-demand-driven applications needs, both competing and complementary frameworks sometimes end up in a product. Further, due to the complexity of their APIs, the intended reduction in overall development time may not be achieved due to the need to spend additional time learning to use the framework; this criticism is clearly valid when a special or new framework is first encountered by development staff.[citation needed] If such a framework is not used in subsequent job taskings, the time invested in learning the framework can cost more than purpose-written code familiar to the project's staff; many programmers keep copies of useful boilerplate code for common needs.
However, once a framework is learned, future projects can be faster and easier to complete; the concept of a framework is to make a one-size-fits-all solution set, and with familiarity, code production should logically rise. There are no such claims made about the size of the code eventually bundled with the output product, nor its relative efficiency and conciseness. Using any library solution necessarily pulls in extras and unused extraneous assets unless the software is a compiler-object linker making a tight (small, wholly controlled, and specified) executable module.
The issue continues, but a decade-plus of industry experience[citation needed] has shown that the most effective frameworks turn out to be those that evolve from re-factoring the common code of the enterprise, instead of using a generic "one-size-fits-all" framework developed by third parties for general purposes. An example of that would be how the user interface in such an application package as an office suite grows to have common look, feel, and data-sharing attributes and methods, as the once disparate bundled applications, grow unified into a suite that is tighter and smaller; the newer/evolved suite can be a product that shares integral utility libraries and user interfaces.
This trend in the controversy brings up an important issue about frameworks. Creating a framework that is elegant, versus one that merely solves a problem, is still rather a craft than a science. "Software elegance" implies clarity, conciseness, and little waste (extra or extraneous functionality, much of which is user-defined). For those frameworks that generate code, for example, "elegance" would imply the creation of code that is clean and comprehensible to a reasonably knowledgeable programmer (and which is therefore readily modifiable), versus one that merely generates correct code. The elegance issue is why relatively few software frameworks have stood the test of time: the best frameworks have been able to evolve gracefully as the underlying technology on which they were built advanced. Even there, having evolved, many such packages will retain legacy capabilities bloating the final software as otherwise replaced methods have been retained in parallel with the newer methods.
Examples
Software frameworks typically contain considerable housekeeping and utility code in order to help bootstrap user applications, but generally focus on specific problem domains, such as:
Artistic drawing, music composition, and mechanical CAD[3][4]
According to Pree,[8] software frameworks consist of frozen spots and hot spots. Frozen spots define the overall architecture of a software system, that is to say its basic components and the relationships between them. These remain unchanged (frozen) in any instantiation of the application framework. Hot spots represent those parts where the programmers using the framework add their own code to add the functionality specific to their own project.
The necessary functionality can be implemented by using the Template Method Pattern in which the frozen spots are known as invariant methods and the hot spots are known as variant or hook methods. The invariant methods in the superclass provide default behaviour while the hook methods in each subclass provide custom behaviour.
When developing a concrete software system with a software framework, developers utilize the hot spots according to the specific needs and requirements of the system. Software frameworks rely on the Hollywood Principle: "Don't call us, we'll call you."[10][11] This means that the user-defined classes (for example, new subclasses) receive messages from the predefined framework classes. Developers usually handle this by implementing superclassabstract methods.
^. DocForge. Archived from the original on 7 October 2018. Retrieved 15 December 2008.
^Vlissides, J M; Linton, M A (1990), "Unidraw: a framework for building domain-specific graphical editors", ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 8 (3): 237–268, doi:10.1145/98188.98197, S2CID 11248368
^Johnson, R E (1992), "Documenting frameworks using patterns", Proceedings of the Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications, ACM Press: 63–76
^Birrer, A; Eggenschwiler, T (1993), "Proceedings of the European conference on object-oriented programming", Frameworks in the financial engineering domain: an experience report, Springer-Verlag, pp. 21–35
^Gachet, A (2003), "Software Frameworks for Developing Decision Support Systems – A New Component in the Classification of DSS Development Tools", Journal of Decision Systems, 12 (3): 271–281, doi:10.3166/jds.12.271-280, S2CID 29690836
^Pree, W (1994), "Meta Patterns: A Means for Capturing the Essentials of Reusable Object-Oriented Design", Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, 821: 150–162, CiteSeerX10.1.1.74.7935, doi:10.1007/BFb0052181, ISBN978-3-540-58202-1
^Buschmann, F (1996), Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture Volume 1: A System of Patterns. Chichester, Wiley, ISBN978-0-471-95869-7
^Larman, C (2001), Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and the Unified Process (2nd ed.), Prentice Hall, ISBN978-0-13-092569-5
The dictionary definition of software framework at Wiktionary
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March 07, 2023
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Framework computer science redirects here For other uses see Framework disambiguation In computer programming a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by additional user written code thus providing application specific software It provides a standard way to build and deploy applications and is a universal reusable software environment that provides particular functionality as part of a larger software platform to facilitate the development of software applications products and solutions Software frameworks may include support programs compilers code libraries toolsets and application programming interfaces APIs that bring together all the different components to enable development of a project or system Frameworks have key distinguishing features that separate them from normal libraries inversion of control In a framework unlike in libraries or in standard user applications the overall program s flow of control is not dictated by the caller but by the framework 1 This is usually achieved with the Template Method Pattern default behaviour This can be provided with the invariant methods of the Template Method Pattern in an abstract class which is provided by the framework extensibility A user can extend the framework usually by selective overriding or programmers can add specialized user code to provide specific functionality This is usually achieved by a hook method in a subclass that overrides a template method in the superclass non modifiable framework code The framework code in general is not supposed to be modified while accepting user implemented extensions In other words users can extend the framework but cannot modify its code Contents 1 Rationale 2 Examples 3 Architecture 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksRationale EditThis section has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Software framework news newspapers books scholar JSTOR April 2011 Learn how and when to remove this template message This section may be too long and excessively detailed Please consider summarizing the material April 2020 This section contains weasel words vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information Such statements should be clarified or removed April 2020 This section is written like a personal reflection personal essay or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor s personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style April 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message Learn how and when to remove this template message The designers of software frameworks aim to facilitate software developments by allowing designers and programmers to devote their time to meeting software requirements rather than dealing with the more standard low level details of providing a working system thereby reducing overall development time 2 For example a team using a web framework to develop a banking website can focus on writing code particular to banking rather than the mechanics of request handling and state management Frameworks often add to the size of programs a phenomenon termed code bloat Due to customer demand driven applications needs both competing and complementary frameworks sometimes end up in a product Further due to the complexity of their APIs the intended reduction in overall development time may not be achieved due to the need to spend additional time learning to use the framework this criticism is clearly valid when a special or new framework is first encountered by development staff citation needed If such a framework is not used in subsequent job taskings the time invested in learning the framework can cost more than purpose written code familiar to the project s staff many programmers keep copies of useful boilerplate code for common needs However once a framework is learned future projects can be faster and easier to complete the concept of a framework is to make a one size fits all solution set and with familiarity code production should logically rise There are no such claims made about the size of the code eventually bundled with the output product nor its relative efficiency and conciseness Using any library solution necessarily pulls in extras and unused extraneous assets unless the software is a compiler object linker making a tight small wholly controlled and specified executable module The issue continues but a decade plus of industry experience citation needed has shown that the most effective frameworks turn out to be those that evolve from re factoring the common code of the enterprise instead of using a generic one size fits all framework developed by third parties for general purposes An example of that would be how the user interface in such an application package as an office suite grows to have common look feel and data sharing attributes and methods as the once disparate bundled applications grow unified into a suite that is tighter and smaller the newer evolved suite can be a product that shares integral utility libraries and user interfaces This trend in the controversy brings up an important issue about frameworks Creating a framework that is elegant versus one that merely solves a problem is still rather a craft than a science Software elegance implies clarity conciseness and little waste extra or extraneous functionality much of which is user defined For those frameworks that generate code for example elegance would imply the creation of code that is clean and comprehensible to a reasonably knowledgeable programmer and which is therefore readily modifiable versus one that merely generates correct code The elegance issue is why relatively few software frameworks have stood the test of time the best frameworks have been able to evolve gracefully as the underlying technology on which they were built advanced Even there having evolved many such packages will retain legacy capabilities bloating the final software as otherwise replaced methods have been retained in parallel with the newer methods Examples Edit Software frameworks typically contain considerable housekeeping and utility code in order to help bootstrap user applications but generally focus on specific problem domains such as Artistic drawing music composition and mechanical CAD 3 4 Financial modeling applications 5 Earth system modeling applications 6 Decision support systems 7 Media playback and authoring Web framework Middleware Cactus Framework High performance scientific computing Application framework General GUI applications Enterprise Architecture framework Oracle Application Development Framework Laravel PHP Framework Malware for example PipedreamArchitecture EditAccording to Pree 8 software frameworks consist of frozen spots and hot spots Frozen spots define the overall architecture of a software system that is to say its basic components and the relationships between them These remain unchanged frozen in any instantiation of the application framework Hot spots represent those parts where the programmers using the framework add their own code to add the functionality specific to their own project In an object oriented environment a framework consists of abstract and concrete classes Instantiation of such a framework consists of composing and subclassing the existing classes 9 The necessary functionality can be implemented by using the Template Method Pattern in which the frozen spots are known as invariant methods and the hot spots are known as variant or hook methods The invariant methods in the superclass provide default behaviour while the hook methods in each subclass provide custom behaviour When developing a concrete software system with a software framework developers utilize the hot spots according to the specific needs and requirements of the system Software frameworks rely on the Hollywood Principle Don t call us we ll call you 10 11 This means that the user defined classes for example new subclasses receive messages from the predefined framework classes Developers usually handle this by implementing superclass abstract methods See also EditClass computer science Design pattern computer science Don t repeat yourself Implicit invocation Software engineReferences Edit Riehle Dirk 2000 Framework Design A Role Modeling Approach PDF Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Framework DocForge Archived from the original on 7 October 2018 Retrieved 15 December 2008 Vlissides J M Linton M A 1990 Unidraw a framework for building domain specific graphical editors ACM Transactions on Information Systems 8 3 237 268 doi 10 1145 98188 98197 S2CID 11248368 Johnson R E 1992 Documenting frameworks using patterns Proceedings of the Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications ACM Press 63 76 Birrer A Eggenschwiler T 1993 Proceedings of the European conference on object oriented programming Frameworks in the financial engineering domain an experience report Springer Verlag pp 21 35 Hill C DeLuca C Balaji V Suarez M da Silva A 2004 Architecture of the Earth System Modeling Framework ESMF Computing in Science and Engineering 6 18 28 doi 10 1109 MCISE 2004 1255817 S2CID 9311752 Gachet A 2003 Software Frameworks for Developing Decision Support Systems A New Component in the Classification of DSS Development Tools Journal of Decision Systems 12 3 271 281 doi 10 3166 jds 12 271 280 S2CID 29690836 Pree W 1994 Meta Patterns A Means for Capturing the Essentials of Reusable Object Oriented Design Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Object Oriented Programming Lecture Notes in Computer Science Springer Verlag 821 150 162 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 74 7935 doi 10 1007 BFb0052181 ISBN 978 3 540 58202 1 Buschmann F 1996 Pattern Oriented Software Architecture Volume 1 A System of Patterns Chichester Wiley ISBN 978 0 471 95869 7 Larman C 2001 Applying UML and Patterns An Introduction to Object Oriented Analysis and Design and the Unified Process 2nd ed Prentice Hall ISBN 978 0 13 092569 5 Gamma Erich Helm Richard Johnson Ralph Vlissides John 1994 Design Patterns Addison Wesley ISBN 0 201 63361 2 External links Edit The dictionary definition of software framework at Wiktionary Media related to Software frameworks at Wikimedia Commons Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Software framework amp oldid 1129497874, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
