Business processes are fluent and need an equally flexible data counterpart: molecules.
Traditionally, domain classes are too often:
Abstraction often has its price.
A “Person” can be endlessly many things and doesn’t like being trapped in any domain class.
The impedance mismatch between fluent business processes and rigid class-based data abstractions pollutes our mental model about our domain.
GraphQL filled the impedance mismatch gap by delivering flexible data structures with a more intuitive query language. The fact that the industry has adopted it so widely speaks volume of the strong need and value of a flexible data layer.
Molecule fills the same gap by offering a similar intuitive way of handling flexible data structures.
Instead of a separate query language, Molecule offers you to use your domain Data Model attributes directly as your custom query language in plain Scala.
Molecules can match the exact data needs of business processes, from case to case.
We see a “domain model” semantically in 3 layers, each supporting the layer above:
Attributes are the slowest changing part of a domain model since the intrinsic definitions of say an “atomic” firstName attribute will rarely, if ever, change. We define those attributes in a Data model.
In the layer above, groups of attributes form data-structures, or “molecules”, that are tailored to the exact needs of business processes of the top layer. No more or less.