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The 3 Must Know Design Patterns All Developers Should Know!

Design patterns cater to general problems in software design that can be applied across different projects. It’s not a versatile or multifunctional solution, but rather a template that can be used to create a customized solution for each problem. Although design patterns are not a direct transformation into code, they provide a framework for how to solve a problem in a way that can be adapted to different situations.

Furthermore, the concept of design patterns ensure that the development process is sped up, as it provides a tested and proven development paradigm. If you’re a software developer, then you may know how important it is to mitigate issues that pop up later during implementation for an effective software design. Reusing design patterns allows you to avoid significant problems while improving code readability for coders and software architects.

In this blog, we’ll understand how design patterns play a vital part in software development and explore that the design pattern is indeed designed as a fundamental design method that improves on prior practices in software design.

1

What makes the design pattern so appealing to use?

“Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite and reuse”

Eric S. Raymond

In software development, it’s often said that the smart way is better than the hard way. This means that using innovative solutions and popular tools can be more effective than just putting in more effort. Design patterns are an example of this smart way of working, as they allow software developers to follow a tried-and-true framework rather than starting from scratch.

Developers benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of others who have encountered and solved similar problems. Hence, making design patterns an appealing approach. Moreover, it adds up to the benefits of effectively executing a project for project managers.

Let’s look at some of the best practices and structures provided by design patterns:

  • Reusability of Existing Solutions:

    It allows you to reuse the solutions which were previously faced during development. There’s no need for reinvention or brainstorming to find a solution to a problem that already exists.
  • Avoiding Frequent Errors:

    Applying design patterns in software development can result in efficient and effective solutions, allowing developers to avoid frequent errors and produce optimum softwares.
  • Avoiding Code Refactoring:

    As design patterns already offer an ultimate solution to your problem, thus, avoiding the need to refract your code.

  • Minimized Codebase:

    Design patterns allow software developers to modify the behavior of a system without completely redesigning anything. As a result, it gives an optimal solution that requires less code.

2

The 3 Design Patterns

Design patterns can be broken down into three types, organized by their intent into creational design patterns, structural design patterns, and behavioral design patterns.

  • Creational Design Patterns

    Creational design patterns are used by the software developers to create objects and manage their life cycles.

    1. Factory Method: Facilitates object creation using a common interface, allowing a class to delegate the creation process to its subclasses.

    2. Abstract Factory: Creates a family of related objects, providing an interface for creating multiple types of related objects.

    3. Builder: Provides a step-by-step approach to constructing complex objects, separating their construction from their final representation.

    4. Prototype: Supports object cloning to create new instances without the need to depend on specific classes or their implementations.

    5. Singleton: Restricts the creation of a class to a single instance, ensuring that only one instance of that class can exist in a given context.

  • Structural Design Patterns

    Software developers use structural design patterns to deal with object composition to create large structures from simple objects.

    1. Adaptive: Allows incompatible interfaces to work together by modifying or adapting an interface to that of another existing class.

    2. Bridge: Separates an interface from its implementation, providing flexibility in how the two are used together.

    3. Composite: Uses a tree structure to treat a group of objects as a single object, simplifying manipulation and management.

    4. Decorator: Dynamically enhances the functionality of an object by adding or overriding its behavior at runtime.

    5. Facade: Provides a simplified interface for a complex system, making it easier to use and understand.

    6. Flyweight: Reduces memory usage by sharing data with similar objects, improving performance and efficiency.

    7. Proxy: Represents an object with another object to control access, reduce costs, and simplify the complexity of the underlying system.

  • Behavioral Design Patterns

    To manage algorithms, relationships, and responsibilities between objects behavioral design patterns are used by the developers.

    1. Chain of Responsibility: Delegates commands to a chain of processing objects, allowing flexibility and dynamic request handling.

    2. Command: Encapsulates a request as an object, allowing it to be executed or queued as needed.

    3. Interpreter: Supports the use of language elements within an application, enabling greater flexibility and customizability.

    4. Iterator: Enables iterative or sequential access to collection elements, simplifying manipulation and management of data.

    5. Mediator: Facilitates communication and coordination between classes, simplifying complex interactions and promoting modularity.

    6. Memento: Saves and restores the original state of an object, enabling undo/redo functionality and improving fault tolerance.

    7. Observer: Notifies objects about changes to other objects, enabling loose coupling and simplifying interconnectivity management.

    8. State: Alters the behavior of an object when its stage changes, enabling more flexible and modular software design.

    9. Strategy: Encapsulates an algorithm inside a class, allowing flexible and interchangeable behavior at runtime.

    10. Visitor: Defines a new operation on a class without making changes to the class itself.

    11. Template Method: Defines the framework of an operation while allowing subclasses to refine certain steps, promoting code reuse and simplifying development.

Let’s Summarize!

Software engineering involves creatively crafting technical solutions to various problems of the modern age, akin to art. With design patterns, the software development community has collaborated to minimize repetitive tasks, allowing more time for efficient innovation. 

As we know, project management paddles to the success of a project keeping all the steps in sync and design patterns further helps the project managers to simplify the development process as well. It enhances code maintainability and deployment, enabling other developers to work on the project’s code with ease. As a result, design patterns have widespread applicability.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

  • Why do we need Design Patterns?

    A design pattern is a broad, reusable solution to frequent problems in software design. The goal is to accelerate the development process by providing tried-and-true development/design paradigms.
  • What is the most important design pattern?

    The factory method is one of the most popular design patterns because it is a creational pattern that helps in the creation of an object without exposing the user to creational logic. The only issue with a factory method is that it is dependent on the concrete component.
     
  • What are the main design patterns?

    The Abstract Factory Pattern, Builder Pattern, Factory Method Pattern, Prototype Pattern, and Singleton Pattern are five well-known design patterns that can be used in a variety of programming languages.

  • What is the most important advantage of design patterns in application development?

    Design patterns give broad solutions that are defined in a way that does not necessitate details related to a specific situation. Furthermore, patterns enable developers to talk about software interactions by using well-known, well-understood terms.

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