Teaching Object-Oriented Software Design within the Context of Software Frameworks

Object-oriented software design and programming is an essential part of a computer science curriculum. We have observed that novice software developers, such as fresh college graduates who have been taught object-oriented design, are able to apply good design principles in theory. However, this rarely extends into their professional practice, when they are asked to design software intended to run inside a software framework. In fact, we observe that even advanced software developers abandon good design practices when developing software while using a framework, and focus on simply "making it work." This paper presents and discusses a methodology developed for designing software in the context of frameworks to overcome these issues. We show how design patterns can serve as the bridge between the paradigms imposed by the framework and the ideal, unconstrained design of the system. We also suggest an evaluation method for observing the results of using this methodology when used by the students.