When I see lots of if/then/else code, I immediately think of polymorphism as a possible solution.

A Command interface and a Map would be a fine way to solve this problem. If I were writing this in Java, it might look like this:

public interface Command<T, V> { V execute(T parameter) throws Exception; } 

If your operations are multi-threaded, you can simply reuse the Runnable interface for Commands that don't return a value and Callable<T> for ones that do.

When I see lots of if/then/else code, I immediately think of polymorphism as a possible solution.

A Command interface and a Map would be a fine way to solve this problem. If I were writing this in Java, it might look like this:

public interface Command<T, V> { V execute(T parameter) throws Exception; } 

If your operations are multi-threaded, you can simply reuse the Runnable interface for Commands that don't return a value and Callable<T> for ones that do.

In either case, now your if/then/else construct is a Map where the key is the name and the value is the Command object. You look up a Command by providing the name key. You add a new command by writing a new implementation of the Command interface and adding it to the Map. Initializing the Map is something you do on startup. You can even externalize it as configuration so you don't have to modify code to add new ones (Open/Closed Principle).