Part 2. Catalog

Part 1 provided an overview of DI, discussing the purpose and benefits of DI. Even though chapter 3 contained an extensive example, we’re sure the first chapters still left you with some unresolved questions. In part 2, we’ll dig a little deeper to answer some of those questions.

As the title implies, part 2 presents a complete catalog of patterns, anti-patterns, and code smells. Some people dislike design patterns, because they find them dry or too abstract. Personally, we love patterns, because they provide us with a high-level language that makes us more efficient and concise when we discuss software design. It’s our intent to use this catalog to provide a pattern language for DI. Although a pattern description must contain some generalizations, we’ve made each pattern concrete, using examples. You can read all three chapters in sequence, but each item in the catalog is also written so that you can read it by itself.

Chapter 4 contains a mini catalog of DI design patterns. In a sense, these patterns constitute prescriptive guidance on how to implement DI, but you should be aware that we don’t consider them to be of equal importance. Constructor Injection and Composition Root are by far the most important design patterns, whereas all the other patterns should be treated as fringe cases that can be applied in specialized circumstances.