Archive for November 13th, 2009

MGFX.Tabs: Simple To Use Tabs Plugin For MooTools

MGFX.Tabs is a simple to use Tabs plugin using MooTools. It uses very simple semantic mark-up, and only requires a single line to get your tabs going. MGFX.Tabs is cross browser plugin that works on all major browsers including Internet Explorer 6.

MGFX.Tabs provides features such as transition animation, slide intervals and ability directly access a Tab based on anchors in the page address. And you can easily customize the look and feel using CSS.

Developed by Sean McArthur; MGFX.Tabs  is available for download under under MIT License.  You can find further information, demo & download on MGFX.Tabs Website.

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DTO’s, DDD & The Anemic Domain Model

I had a comment on my last post Tips for ORM Data Access which i would like like to address with this blog post.

I have been trying to wrap my head around the role of the DTO in DDD. My reading of Fowler and Evans seems to indicate that you ought to have your domain objects themselves mapping into your database, rather than dedicated function-less DTOs. Relying on DTOs that are then handled by Services seems to lead to what Fowler calls The Anemic Domain Anti-Pattern: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/AnemicDomainModel.html

However, I have a tough time writing Entity classes that operate in that manner that don’t end up rather painful to change and extend.

Since you recommend the practice of using DTOs, do you have any thoughts on the subject?

Thank you for the question Scott, of course I have thoughts on this :)

Disclaimer: This sort of architecture is not applicable to many systems, use the right patterns and tools for the job!

I agree that an anemic domain model is bad, if there is no behavior then what’s the point right? Let’s make sure I am on the same page here:

DTO: To me, a DTO moves data between ‘tiers’. They are the packaged data ready for transport. A WCF data contract is a perfect example of a DTO, I also see a JSON object as a DTO.

Read model: This would be a different model than your real Domain model.  A Read model is very lightweight, ‘thin’ and anemic.  Its purpose is to serve aggregated data to a specific screen or message. A DTO, to me, can be a read model, as too could be a View Model.

The domain model is rich and full of behavior. This model is most valuable when performing complex business rules during the saving and updating of data within a given transaction. It can also be used to read data too, but consider this contrived example:

Let’s say that we want to display the top 10 products. The products include the Manufacturer Name, Product Name, Vendor Name,  Product Price,  Customer Ranking. Being that we are good modelers we come up with something like the following entities: Vendor, Manufacturer, Product,  &  ProductRanking (maybe localization & currency support tables too).

If I use my domain model to get this data, I am going to end up retrieving quite a bit more data than I actually need, which could degrade performance. Not to mention having to deal with dot notation everywhere foo.Name =a.b.c.d. 

We only need 5 fields, and they are immutable for this operation.

My preference is to materialize the read model (DTO, View Model) by projecting from the Domain Model, or by using a Stored Procedure for more complicated recursive, spatial or temporal queries.

Splitting the models allows the reads & writes to fluctuate independently, so which leads to higher maintainability. These models can also run on different tiers/nodes to increase scalability (read/cache tier, write tier).

At some point, whether off a view or an inbound DTO, there will be mapping back into the domain model. This ‘friction’ or ‘impedance’ is pretty easy to manage using an assembler/translator, or a tool like AutoMapper.

Greg Young & Udi Dahan take this concept further and apply a programming principle called Command-Query Separation with distributed programming and SOA. I think it is very good stuff.

Here are some posts that are all somewhat related:
http://jonathan-oliver.blogspot.com/2009/03/dddd-and-cqs-getting-started.html
http://www.udidahan.com/2008/08/11/command-query-separation-and-soa/
http://codebetter.com/blogs/gregyoung/archive/2009/08/13/command-query-separation.aspx
http://elegantcode.com/2008/04/27/dtos-or-serialized-domain-entities/
http://elegantcode.com/2008/04/30/altnet-seattle-takeawayddddresources/


35 Incredible Digital Painting Tutorials


  

Art is not restricted to any medium, nor is digital painting. Yes, you read that right: “digital painting.” It is a new trend in today’s technologically brilliant world that won’t go away any time soon. Here, we’ve gathered 35 tutorials to inspire you to display your creativity through digital painting. We hope you like this collection. Kindly share your comments about it with us.

Digital Painting Tutorials

Making of Spanish Girl
This tutorial shows you how to make this portrait of a Spanish girl.

Making of Spanish Girl

Making of “My Prince”
“The girl in the picture is a young witch with mysterious magic. The baby dragon is her pet. The baby dragon looks up to the sky naively, strains the leash, and wants to fly into an adventure. Overall, I wanted to create a peaceful scene, just like when we are holding our own pets, that makes you feel warm, or even proud.”

Making of

Umbrella Sky
Marta Dahlig’s gorgeous “Umbrella Sky” image was unanimously chosen for the cover of Ballistic Publishing’s EXOTIQUE 3. And after submitting it, Marta continued to improve on this exquisite work. Here, she takes us through the process of building on a dream.

Umbrella Sky

How to Create a Fantasy Mother Nature Scene
“This tutorial is about creating a fantasy scene called ‘Mother Nature.’ We will use well-chosen images, brushes and, most of all, our imagination, in combination with Photoshop techniques, to create an outstanding image.”

How to Create a Fantasy Mother Nature Scene

Making of Beauty on the Bed
“It was obvious that a female character was an ideal subject. I knew I wanted to create a girl with imposing beauty. I am a huge fan of Lara Swift’s photography, and one particular photograph in my collection really inspired and motivated me to start.”

Making of Beauty on the Bed

How to Create a Sparkling Fantasy Photo Manipulation
“In this tutorial, we’re going to do photo manipulation using different techniques. We’ll adjust each layer and element to make a compact final image. We’ll use multiple photos and a handful of effects to create this work.”

How to Create a Sparkling Fantasy Photo Manipulation

Modeling of the Dinosaur
“When working with ZBrush, I always model something with Z-sphere. It is one of ZBrush’s cool features and enables fast and intuitive modeling of low poly objects. Also, I like that you can constantly check the outcome of your ZSphere form against how it looks when turned into mesh by pressing the ‘A’ key on your keyboard.”

Modeling of the Dinosaur

Feathers and Angel Wings
Painting wings is quite similar to painting hair: the first time you do it, it seems impossible, but in fact it’s not, and little tips can help a lot.

Feathers and Angel Wings

Making of Binah
“Binah was a difficult and time-consuming project. It was a great challenge for me, technically and artistically. Binah is the third Sephirah of the tree of life in Cabbala. After reading many texts about the tree of life, I wrote some sentences describing my vision of Binah.”

Making of Binah

Making of Jealous Bodyguard
In this tutorial, the artist shows you his preferred method of setting up the image and using Photoshop tools. You’ll see a breakdown of how this image was created.

Making of Jealous Bodyguard

Digital Portrait -W-
A step-by-step tutorial on creating this digital portrait.

Digital Portrait -W-

Digitally Paint a Fantasy Tree Scene
“Learn how to make a fantasy scene using only the standard Photoshop brushes. I describe the basics of color and light theory. In this tutorial, you will paint this eye-catching illustration in less than two hours.”

Digitally Paint a Fantasy Tree Scene

Fantasy Light Effects in Photoshop
Fantasy art scenes are usually handled with a liberal sprinkling of Photoshop plug-in fairy dust. But you don’t have to slavishly follow that route. By creating your own brushes in Adobe Illustrator and using scanned elements with Photoshop, creating otherworldly scenes that are alive with glow effects and shafts of virtual light is a simple process.

Fantasy light effects in Photoshop

Making Of Boudicca 3060 A.D.
An engaging tutorial that teaches you how to make this beautiful Boudicca.

Making Of Boudicca 3060 A.D.

Painting fantasy eyes
To paint a realistic-looking eye, one must understand its form. The human eye is a sphere, covered by upper and lower eyelids. Imagining parallel lines passing along the eyes makes it easier to sketch them correctly.

Painting fantasy eyes

Create Film Sets in Photoshop
Film scenes frequently rely on vast backdrops and fantasy imagery that would be too costly or impractical to actually build or find. This is where matte painting comes in. Visual effects artists are called on to create both simple and elaborate illusions by painting over real images.

Create film sets in Photoshop

Creating Broken Link
This tutorial focuses on making design choices and a bit of theory.

Creating Broken Link

Red Assassin Digital Painting Tutorial
“Here’s how I do my painting. This is a work in progress, so you’ll see the steps I take in creating it. This is a quick sketch over a black background. Then I fill it with colors. I normally place my palette of colors beside the drawing so that I know what the colors will be.”

Red Assassin Digital Painting Tutorial

Do you want to Play with me
“This artwork was created in Photoshop CS2 with a Wacom Intuos 3. I will explain in detail how to make this image. Hope many of you will enjoy.”

Do you want to Play with me

Making of Three Lines
In this detailed tutorial, the artist teaches us how to make “artwork of three lines.”

Making of Three lines

Making of Willpower
“I’ve always found the thought of someone faint and helpless, suddenly being able to fight against the worst of dangers, very appealing. This is the point when everything changes, when the lost decide to escape their fate. In my image, a brave young girl is in a situation she would never believe she’d get into, and then something happens that no one would ever expect!”

Making of Willpower

How to Draw a Digital Portrait
In this tutorial, the artist explains how he created this portrait of the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson.

How to draw a digital portrait

Painting Kadaj
In this detailed and comprehensive tutorial, the artist shows his best techniques for making this portrait of Kadaj.

Painting Kadaj

Painting realistic hands
Painting hands can be very difficult for professional and amateur artists alike. The complexity of their structure makes them one of the hardest parts of the human body to render properly. Painting realistic hands requires two key factors for a satisfying result: a thorough knowledge of anatomy, and a creative choice of skin tone.

Painting realistic hands

Transform a Human into an Abstract Painted Werewolf
“In this tutorial, you will learn how to bring a simple concept to life and give it a fantastic final result. Beside illustrating the human-to-werewolf transformation, we will fill the images with cool painted effects and add some abstraction in the end.”

Transform a Human into an Abstract Painted Werewolf

Making of Angelina Jolie
“After having collected some pictures of the famous actress Angelina Jolie, I decided to use some of them for this creation. Before starting the modeling phase, I took a moment to observe the features of this beautiful actress—above all, her cheekbones, which are very pronounced.”

Making of the Angelina Jolie

Making of Cold Sky
The artist teaches us how to make this beautiful “cold sky.”

Making of Cold Sky

Skin Painting Tutorial
“I want to clarify that this tutorial is not the correct or only way to paint. It is just my way of painting, and only that. Feel free to follow it entirely or just the part that pleases you. I will be using Photoshop, but the tutorial can be done on any program that has good painting tools.”

SKIN PAINTING TUTORIAL

Painting Really Old People
“The Internet is full of young, pretty people with large breasts. But believe it or not, people do get old. And wrinkly. And nothing is wrong with that. It can actually be fun and interesting to draw people who don’t have silky smooth skin! This tutorial shares some methods I’ve found for painting wrinkles and some thoughts on how to make a character look old.”

Painting Really Old People

Making of Bronze Dragon
“In this tutorial, we are going to color a dragon portrait. As I always say, it’s impossible to make a good painting without a good sketch. That’s why, if your drawings are not as strong as you’d like, you should buy a sketchbook before picking up Photoshop.”

Making of Bronze Dragon

Spider Harp
“This fantasy is of musician playing the harp on a spider’s web. It was a personal piece and a really big and delicate work. I thank the users of 3Dvf.com and Tdt3D.be for helping my work in progress.”

Spider Harp

Making Frodo
A detailed and beautiful tutorial that teaches you to make a great Frodo.

Making Frodo

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation
In this tutorial, you will learn how to manipulate a fantasy landscape photo.

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation

Related posts

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