Water Drop Anti-Pattern

In my previous entries, I presented two patterns that allow you to limit the number of messages sent over a queue: the Indiana Jones Pattern and the Hamburger Pattern. The first one filters data while the second merges it.

Once all your data is filtered and merged, messages still arrives individually, one after the other, on your queues. In some cases, it might introduce the Water Drop Anti-Pattern, where your data arrives like from a tap from which drops are falling one after the other.

Consider an application where you highest layer sends data through a network. Each individual message comes with a payload: it has a header which allows it to arrive to the correct destination. The smaller the message, the highest the payload.

If your highest layer is a user interface, your message will also have a payload: the repaint method which needs to be called after each update. Usually, this is the most expensive operation in your interface.

Next time, I will show a way to solve this problem: the Santa Claus Pattern. Wait for it!