What You Need To Know About The Architecture Design Patterns in Android

Making an Android app in itself isn’t all that hard as you get the basics right. Making a maintainable app is a whole different story. You have to give your code a clean structure to prevent yourself from putting all the code inside of a fragment and make many smaller classes that have a single responsibility.

In order to achieve such success in the sphere of mobile app development you should highlight the importance of the architecture design patterns. The implementation of architecture design patterns organizes the whole app development process and clarifies the data content, otherwise, the process may become chaos.

If you also want to develop a mobile application that will support your business or even become a business platform, then you are in the right place. For this time, I will uncover what you need to know about the architecture design patterns in the Android operating system. First of all, let’s realize the importance of using architecture in android app development.

Does your app need proper architecture?

Surely, it does! And this is not merely a standard to follow, but an approach that guarantees efficiency and high quality. So, how can Android architecture patterns help you?

Due to good architecture, your app gets:

✔ Simplicity

The clear code helps you to identify a class that has a single function. As a result, it’s possible to find out its function easily. On the other hand, you keep the logic of the component, so that other developers may find it easy to understand your code and add any feature to your work.

✔ Checkability

Without an architecture design pattern, it is difficult to debug a class because it involves a great number of functions. Testable codes are an essential benefit of architecture design patterns. In the end, your application is bug-free, and its quality is easily assured.

The principle of implementing an architecture is that everything should be appropriately organized. But, how to achieve such an outcome. In order to guarantee the competitive quality of your android app, you should choose the best architecture design patterns. And here comes the next question:

What are the best architecture design patterns in Android?

First of all, let me tell you that there is no single pattern that fits all of your android app designs. The reason is obvious - an architecture pattern is abstract, and it depends on the specific requirements of the application. The most commonly implemented ones are the MVC and MVVM models. From these 2 examples, you are highly recommended to use the MVVM design pattern in Android since it provides a scalable structure that solves many classic problems Android developers face. Let’s see what the model MVVM is about and its advantage in reference to MVC architecture.

MVVM pattern in Android

MVVM is one of the best versions of Android app development. It’s the architecture design pattern that is fully supported and encouraged by Google with their first-party libraries. The term MVVM stands for Model - View - ViewModel. This is an architectural pattern for implementing user interfaces. The pattern MVVM consists of 3 moving parts:

1. Model. It represents the business objects that cover the data and behavior of the application domain. So your application domain model should include specific components related to the sphere of your application. The key point to remember about the Model is that it represents the actual data we are dealing with.
2. View. This is what we are familiar with as users. In MVVM, the View is active. It’s what the end-users interact with. It contains behaviors, events, and data-binding (the connection between the app UI and business logic). As a rule, data-binding requires some knowledge related to the Model and ViewModel.
3. ViewModel. It’s a model that is specifically designed for the view. The ViewModel is a component with properties that represent the state of the view and the methods that implement the logic behind the view. For instance, we have a page, including a list and a button. When the user clicks on the button, a new item is added to the list. To create such a ViewModel, we need to have a class for items that will also include an “add” property.

The View and the ViewModel communicate with data-binding, properties, events, and messages. The ViewModel may directly reveal the Model. Sometimes it’s better to include some additional components in the MVVM pattern. The most important ones are:

• Repository

Creating the Repository pattern (or Presentation Layer), we check whether to fetch data from an API or local database. In a simple language, we may say we put the logic of the database fetching in the Repository class.

• LiveData

LiveData is a lifecycle-aware data holder. It means this component respects the life-cycle of other app components, including activities, fragments, and services.

Using both patterns is not an obligation. However, it provides good practice.

MVC pattern in Android

Like the MVVM pattern, the MVC model puts the app into three main aspects. These are explained as the Model - View - Controller.

1. Model. Here the Model represents the business logic as in MVVM.
2. View. The role of the component View is also the same as in MVVM. It's the UI layer which is responsible for displaying the data.
3. Controller. In this case, the new component is the Controller that is responsible for the flow of information. We may say that this is a logic layer which is notified about the user behavior and updates the Model according to the requirements. For instance, if the users request a page to an MVC application, it’s the Controller that returns a response to the request.

MVVM vs MVC

The pattern MVC provides only one-way communication. Whereas, the MVVM pattern provides two-way communication between the pattern parts. As a result, you need to add specific components for every single action.

Both the MVC and MVVM frameworks provide a structure to clarify the app development process. However, the MVC is relatively overcomplicated and hard to debug. On the other hand, the MVVM is a preferable way to structure code because:

1. UI components are kept away from the business logic so that all of the views and widgets that are on the screen have no idea how the data gets there and where it comes from.
2. The business logic is kept away from the database operations. So the part of the code related to the business logic has no idea where the data comes from and how it gets there.
3. It’s very easy to understand, and that’s because everything (for example, business logic, data) has its specific place.
4. If MVVM is done correctly, you have a lot less to worry about when it comes to managing life-cycle events. An example is when the users close the application and come back a few hours later.

Conclusion

Every software architect is a developer but not every developer is an architect. As a software architect, you have already made the right choice of pattern - MVVM is the perfect architecture design pattern for Android app development as it provides a stable experience.