Professional Cairngorm™

2.2. Micro-Architecture

Recall that in the last chapter I pointed out that you will see Cairngorm referred to as both a framework and a micro-architecture, with micro-architecture being the more specific of the two terms. Webster and Tanner define a micro-architecture as a collection of design patterns (discussed shortly) that have been proven to work well together.

Cairngorm comprises the following design patterns:

• Model View Controller

• Observer

• Singleton

• Command

• Proxy

After a discussion of what a design pattern is as a general concept, each of the individual patterns listed earlier will be described in more detail, as will its use in the Cairngorm framework.