11.10 Conclusion

It is my hope that this discussion has provided some insight into the mechanics of using design heuristics and patterns in the object-oriented analysis and design process. The reader should carefully note the way in which design heuristics allow a designer to reference a group of design patterns, one of which can be used to resolve the conflict implied by the violated heuristic. In addition, this discussion provides a good example of developing a distributed object-oriented design without considering the distributed qualities until after the logical design is complete. Early concerns with process distribution often force a development team to get bogged down in the details of a system. The judicious use of proxies allows the system architects to position all of their efforts at the top level of design, allowing the postponement of the system details. This postponement can dramatically simplify the design process of a distributed object-oriented system.