Getting Started with Design Patterns - Part 1

 

 Design Patterns Part 1 of the Series🚀

Let’s explore design patterns in a way that’s easy for beginners to understand! Design patterns are like tried-and-true recipes for solving common programming challenges. They help you write better, cleaner, and more efficient code. If you’re new to the concept, don’t worry – this guide will walk you through the basics step by step🎯. Let’s get started!

Introduction🙋

The term design patterns is common in discussions about best practices for solving problems efficiently during software development. But really, what are design patterns? Simply explained, a design pattern represents a known solution for a frequently occurring problem in software design. They describe standardized ways to tackle recurring problems with ease and give robust codebases.

The importance of the design patterns comes in that it encapsulates combined experience coming from generations of experienced developers. A design pattern allows you easily to write maintainable, scalable, and even reusable code with less effort.

 Design Pattern Definition💁

Design patterns are not finished pieces of code ready for use but templates that may be useful when the proper situation arises and solves a design problem. Design patterns describe structures and interactions between classes or objects, and therefore do not present details concerning some implementation of an application.

Probably the most important value about design patterns is that they are reusable, thus saving developers from trying to reinvent the wheel. They provide tried and tested solutions to common problems. They also provide a common vocabulary among developers that helps in communication and teamwork.

History and Origin📑

The concept of design patterns in software development has been popularized by the seminal book

Design Patterns- Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm,

Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides , briefly known as the Gang of Four (GoF). It was published in 1994 and cataloged 23 seminal patterns that since then have become the backbone of modern software engineering.

 Benefits of Using Design Patterns

    📌 Reusability

    Reusability of design patterns saves time trying on already available tested and running solutions for     common problems to find that solution. And further on, it supports consistency with quality in the        execution of the project.

  📌Better Communication

    Design patterns use set names and hence provide for easy learning about and discussion among            developers of solution availability by the developers,

        Example-: "Use Singleton here" or "This wants a Factory.". Amounts to talking volumes in                     nutshell sentences.

  📌Best Practices

    Design patterns encapsulate the best practices of the industry, which, when employed, help a                    developer avoid pitfalls while resulting in better-structured and maintainable code.

Categories of Design Patterns

In general, design patterns are grouped into three categories including,

 

Creational Patterns👇

    Creation patterns basically deal with ways of creating objects while concealing the creation logic.             Thus, the system becomes independent from the way of instantiation of its objects. Examples,

〰Singleton

                Ensures a class has no more than one instance and provides a global point of access to that                     object.

〰Factory

         It provides a common interface for creating objects in a superclass, but allows subclasses to                     change the type of object that will actually be created. Builder: It separates the construction of                 complex objects from their representation so that the same construction process can create                     different representations.

 Structural Patterns👇

A structural pattern is about composition of classes and objects into larger structures in such a way that the structure created is flexible and efficient. A few examples of structural patterns are as follows:

〰Adapter- Makes incompatible interfaces work together.

〰Composite - Treats individual objects and compositions of objects uniformly.

〰Proxy - Provides surrogate or placeholder to control access to an object.

 Behavioral Patterns👇

Behavioral design patterns provide various ways of achieving communication and distributing responsibilities among objects. They include,

〰Observer

Specifies a dependency between objects in a one-to-many relationship so that when one object                 changes state, all its dependents are notified about the change.

〰Strategy

            Allows a class to select its behavior at runtime by encapsulating algorithms in separate classes.

〰Command

             Encapsulates a request as an object to enable parameterization and queuing of requests.

Common Misconceptions🙆

       While design patterns provide considerable benefits, they are not the answer to everything.                        Some common misunderstandings are,

👎Overuse

            The implementation of unnecessary patterns results in complicated systems. Patterns should be applied when they truly solve a problem.

👎Rigidity of Implementation

            Patterns are templates, not rigid rules. A developer should mold those to meet his needs, not try to shoehorn a problem into fitting a pattern.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of design patterns, you’re ready to dive deeper! In the next part of this series, we’ll explore Creational Design Patterns, starting with the Factory Pattern – a powerful tool for creating objects in a structured and flexible way. Stay tuned for more insights and practical examples!