Command Pattern Design for Web Application

Abstract

In recent times, Web application development has become essential for the IT industry. In the past, Web applications were used primarily to provide a graphical view of data stored in backend systems, and business logic execution or any form of data manipulation was programmed in the backend systems. Web applications were treated as dummy client interfaces because client machines were not proficient in performing complex computational operations or executing business operations such as data manipulation and analysis. Now, as client machines have become more advanced and capable of performing complicated business operations, application developers can make client interfaces more intelligent. Enabling client interfaces to handle such complex business processes is of great importance for some business scenarios, like in the case of collaborative user interface designing where data representation and data insertion are not the sole purpose of the Web applications. Adapting design patterns like “Command Pattern” (Long in IEEE, 2017 [1]; Betts et al. in Avail Maintainability Windows Azure, 2013 [2]) can make the Web client smarter and more efficient. This pattern reduces the burden on the backend systems when performing all kinds of business operations [3]. This design pattern provides flexibility to the developers for converting all user actions executed in the user interface (UI) into simple, discrete commands. In this paper, a detailed approach is discussed on how to apply the pattern in more optimized manner by which one can then submit commands individually in an asynchronous manner to the backend system for processing. Handling of these user actions through individual asynchronous commands discussed in the paper makes the UI non-blocking. This also provides flexibility in performing some of the UI changes locally until a response is received from the backend. This paper details the architecture for using “Command Pattern” and design approach for any Web application development and best practices that improve the user experience.