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4 tips to build better DTOs
Whether you’re building a service that communicates with a third party or constructing a layered system, DTOs will help isolate the core from integrations. This way, you’ll build more robust and maintainable systems. Let’s go over a few tips to improve your DTOs.
What are DTOs ?
DTOs, or Data Transfer Objects, are essentially containers for data that facilitate communication between different parts of a system. Fowler describes DTOs as a way to streamline communication between processes by bundling multiple parameters into a single call, thereby reducing the number of roundtrips to the server. This consolidation helps minimize network overhead, particularly in remote operations.
Additionally, DTOs offer the advantage of encapsulating serialization logic, which is the process of translating object structures and data into a format suitable for storage and transmission. By centralizing this logic, DTOs provide a single point of control for managing serialization details. Moreover, they foster decoupling between domain models and presentation layers, allowing each to evolve independently.
