If you design software architectures, you come across the same goals and problems. Architectural patterns make it easier for you to solve these issues by providing unique, repeatable designs that address common situations. Most often, software design patterns are confused with architectural patterns in software engineering.
However, the second option defines the organization of components within a specific software project, while the first one gives direct recommendations on how to code. Design patterns are preferable because of their ability to transform into reusable solutions for coding-level problems. Now, let’s discuss the importance of these patterns in the software development process in more detail.
The Theory of Pattern Design and Its Connection to Software Development
A software design pattern helps resolve general problems that many software developers face during the coding process. These common design patterns ensure the reusability of the code, its scalability, and simple bug fixing. The choice of any design pattern for a particular project is determined by its initial requirements and the prospects for its evolution in the software development process.
Design patterns simplify the tasks of software engineers when used correctly. This helps them avoid wasting their time searching for non-trivial solutions to problems that may arise during the coding process. Software design patterns also provide useful rules and practices that help optimize work in large development teams.
Importance of Design Patterns
The design pattern can accelerate the software development process by providing proven paradigms. This helps you save time without the need to reinvent patterns every time a problem arises.
Design patterns are usually created to fix known problems within the software, which can be predicted before becoming visible during the implementation process. Standardization related to the design pattern is also very useful to facilitate code readability which speeds up software development. It proves to be helpful when moving from an analysis model to a development model.
Software design patterns can also be used concretely in several cases, like managing the payroll system when changing salaries and keeping the system informed of the changes.
You can easily document the solutions to be adopted based on previous practices and lessons learned across the software development process because of excellent design patterns. Several software components are used in the implementation of these design patterns.
Types of Common Software Design Patterns
Several companies hire software architects who use these software design patterns to write more structured, manageable, and scalable code. These codes help streamline the software development process and improve collaboration among teams.
Currently, there are three common design patterns, which include:
- Creational Design Pattern
- Structural Design Pattern
- Behavioral Design Pattern
Creational Design Pattern
These software design patterns usually focus on the process of object creation or problems related to it. These patterns make a system independent of how its objects are usually created, composed, and represented.
Creational design patterns are further categorized into the following:
Factory Method Design Pattern
This pattern helps separate the construction of an object from its implementation. It means anyone can produce the objects without the need to define their exact class.
Abstract Factory Method Design Pattern
These patterns often work around a super-factory, which helps create other factories. They are considered another layer of abstraction over a typical factory pattern.
Singleton Method Design Pattern
This straightforward pattern is the easiest to understand and guarantees that a class has a single instance and offers an excellent method to access it globally.
Prototype Method Design Pattern
Prototypes usually allow you to hide the complexities of making new instances from the client. So, these patterns include copying existing objects rather than creating a new one from scratch which includes costly operations.
Structural Design Pattern
These design patterns solve problems related to how objects and classes are composed or assembled to form larger structures. Most of these structures are efficient and flexible. Structural class patterns also use inheritance to compose various implementations. They can be categorized into:
Adapter Method Design Pattern
This particular pattern helps convert the interface of a particular class into another interface clients expect. It also enables several classes to work together, which couldn’t otherwise collaborate due to incompatible interfaces.
Bridge Method Design Pattern
These design patterns allow the independent development of abstraction and implementation processes. Here, only the client code can access the abstraction part without being bothered about the implementation part.
Composite Method Design Pattern
This pattern involves a collection of items to be handled the same way as a single instance of the same object type. It aims to “compose” objects into unique, tree-shaped structures that represent part-whole hierarchies.
Decorator Method Design Pattern
Software developers can add functionality and behavior to an object using the Decorator Method Design Pattern without changing how other objects in the same class behave.
Facade Method Design Pattern
These software design patterns usually provide a unified interface to a set of interfaces in a subsystem. They aim to define a high-level interface that makes the subsystem easier to use.
Flyweight Method Design Pattern
This particular design offers various ways to decrease object count and improve the application-required object structures. It is usually leveraged when creating multiple objects similar to each other.
Proxy Method Design Pattern
Proxy patterns are often called surrogates, handles, and wrappers. They are closely related in structure to adapters and decorators.
Behavioral Design Pattern
These software design patterns deal with the algorithms and the assignment of responsibilities between different objects. Behavioral patterns describe the patterns of objects or classes and the eventual communication between them. These patterns also characterize complex control flow that can be difficult to follow at run-time.
Here are the subcategories of behavioral design patterns that everyone must know:
Chain of Responsibility Method Design Pattern
These patterns are used to achieve loose coupling in software designs. In most cases, a request from the client’s side is passed to a chain of objects to process them when working with these patterns.
Command Method Design Pattern
It is a behavioral design pattern that transforms a particular request into an independent object with all the requested information. It also allows the object to be stored, passed around, and executed later.
Interpreter Method Design Pattern
This particular pattern defines a grammatical representation for a specific language and also provides an interpreter to deal with the grammar.
Mediator Method Design Pattern
These software design patterns involve the decoupling of objects by introducing a layer so that the interaction happens without any interruptions.
Memento Method Design Pattern
This particular pattern is used to return an object to its initial state. A few professionals may also create checkpoints in the application and return to them at a later time when it develops by leveraging this pattern.
Observer Method Design Pattern
This particular pattern helps establish a one-to-many dependency between objects. It means all the dependents or observers of the subject are updated and notified instantly when the subject changes.
State Method Design Pattern
These common design patterns are applied when any object modifies its behavior according to its internal state. Professionals must use a state variable and an if-else block to define actions for each state to change an object’s behavior.
Strategy Method Design Pattern
This pattern helps select a particular object’s behavior in the run time. It usually involves a family of algorithms divided into distinct classes that implement a common interface.
Template Method Design Pattern
This is a unique design pattern that defines an algorithm as a collection of skeleton operations. Here, the child classes usually handle the implementation of the specifics.
Visitor Method Design Pattern
This pattern is usually leveraged when software architects have to perform an operation on a group of similar kinds of objects. It enables them to move from the operational logic of the objects to another class.
Bottom Line
Software design patterns are the key to ensuring the success of software development processes across systems. However, not everyone knows how to create or implement these patterns. If you want to hire software architects who specialize in this field, consider using Hyqoo. The AI-powered platform enables you to indulge in smart searches and find a professional who can help you by creating some common design patterns. These professionals are adept at learning how to design and develop solid software architecture.
FAQs
What is the difference between design patterns and algorithms?
Design patterns solve recurring design problems at the architectural or structural level by giving importance to the organization of code. Algorithms are step-by-step procedures for resolving specific problems at the computational level.
Are software design patterns language-specific?
Design patterns are never tied to any programming language across systems. They are conceptual solutions that can be implemented across multiple languages with varied syntax and implementation details.
What is the difference between design patterns and anti-patterns?
Design patterns promote common problems because they are the proven solutions to any issue. Anti-patterns, on the other hand, are bad practices that may lead to poor software design and should be avoided.
