What is Framework

[surya sudhakar]

Hi All,
I didn't understand what is the difference between a Framework and Disign pattern. I think both provide guidelines of desing for commonly occuring problems. Am I right?
Thanks in advance
Sudhakar

[Frank Carver]

Almost.
In the usage I'm familiar with, a Framework is an actual implementation of some sort, which embodies some design idea but is extendable or customizable to make specific applications.
A Design Pattern, on the other hand is a shared understanding of a possible solution to a class of problems, together with information about things which indicate when it might or might not be suitable.

[Kyle Brown]

Good answer, Frank. A good resource for this kind of questions is the Frameworks page maintained by Ralph Johnson (http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/johnson/frameworks.html) who should know a bit about both, since he's one of the co-authors of "Design Patterns" and one of the world's most foremost experts on Frameworks
Kyle

[Sudharsan Govindarajan]

What is this stuff called Blue Prints? Are they different from Patterns or another name given to patterns?

[Julian Sitkevich]

Sudharsan,
From your last post, I think you are referring to Sun's Java Blueprints at http://java.sun.com/blueprints/
They are composed of best practices, patterns and guidelines. Hope that helps!
- julian
[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: Julian Sitkewich ]

[Sudharsan Govindarajan]

yeah! I was referring to Sun's Java Blueprints. Thanks for that clarification.

[Ralf Allar]

Originally posted by sur sudhakar:
Hi All,
I didn't understand what is the difference between a Framework and Disign pattern. I think both provide guidelines of desing for commonly occuring problems. Am I right?
Thanks in advance
Sudhakar

Hi Sudhakar,
okay in short:
A framework is a kind of tool helping you solving specific problems in a specific context or domain. I.e.: a framework can help you to develop a webapplication providing a kind of FRAME, you'll modify to your specific requests.
Design patterns are common solutions to given problem domains. A framework could use the Frontcontroller pattern to delegate requests/response to a web application. Also an application with GUI-elements should use a model-view-controller pattern.
Hope, this simple explanation helps...
Have fun,
Ralf