In this ever evolving world of software design and development; everyone no no no, many of us are on pursuit of an excellence. To achieve that we have to read or discuss other programmer's approach, their hardships and suggestions for the approach they had used. We have accumulated so many similar approaches over the year and started calling those Software Design Patterns. These patters are blueprints to solve similar kind of recurring problems, and sometimes clubbing two or more to achieve some unique solution. Design Patterns elegant and proven solutions that improves the quality, maintainability and scalability of your software system. Let's discuss the intriguing world of design patterns and their importance in software design.
What are Design Patterns?
Design patterns are recurring solutions to common problems encountered during software design. Let's discuss with simplest example, imagine you have to build a car; you would not start from scratch of reinventing the wheels with turning a square into round shape tyre and all. You will use common blueprints like using engine to generate power and wheels to make it easy to move over the road, a steering wheel to give it direction and other wisdom of different car makers existing design. Similarly Design Patterns are blueprints for software design and development. They encapsulate best practices and provide a structured approach to solve specific problem. Important those are not readymade code or library to use; rather set of guidelines that can be adapted to suit the unique requirement of problem in hand.
Why are Design Patterns important?
1. Proven Solutions:
Design patterns are tried-and-tested solutions to real-world problems. They have been refined over time and validated by countless developers. By leveraging design patterns, you benefit from the collective wisdom of your community.
2. Enhanced Maintainability:
Using design patterns makes code consist and organised. This makes your codebase more understandable and maintainable across all teams; reducing the likelihood of introducing bugs during future updates or modifications.
3. Scalability:
Design patterns encourage modularity and flexibility in your software architecture. This makes it easier to scale your application as it grows, accommodating changing requirements and increasing complexity. As thousands of developers already tested that for you.
4. Effective Communication:
Design Patterns are like a common vocabulary for software developers like melody for musicians. When you used Design Patterns, you and your team effectively communicate ideas with more clarity.
Common Design Patterns:
Ancient Software Developers categorised design patterns in several categories, most fundamentals are
1. Creational Patterns:
As name suggest these deal with object creation mechanisms, these patterns provides a way to create objects while minimising dependencies on the specific class/function being instantiated, enhancing flexibility and maintainability in software design.
- Singleton
- Factory Method
- Abstract Factory
- Builder
- Prototype
2. Structural Patterns:
Structural Design patterns focus on composing objects and classes from larger structure, emphasising the relationships between objects to create more flexible and efficient systems.
- Adapter
- Bridge
- Composite
- Decorator
- Facade
- Proxy
3. Behavioural Patterns:
Behavioural Design Patterns address how objects interact and communicate with each other to achieve specific behaviour or responsibility.
- Observer
- Strategy
- Command
- State
- Template Method
- Visitor
[We will talk about all these in some other blog, so this wont be messy. Blogs should also be cleaned as code]
When to use Design Patterns?
We have got a plenty idea about design patterns and their categorisation, but without knowing when to use the knowledge is in vein. They aren't one-size-fits-all solution. So it is crucial to choose the appropriate design pattern for your current problem you are trying to solve. Which design pattern should you use when will be clear after discussing above categories in detail with code but for now you can consider below mention scenario as trigger you need to use design patterns ;)
1. Complex System:
In Complex Software Systems, they help manage and organise code thus making it mode comprehensible and maintainable.
2. Collaborative Projects:
As mentioned earlier, Design Patter : Software Developer :: Melody : Musician; they help proving a shared language and structure for the codebase.
3. Recurring Problems:
If you find yourself solving the same design problem repeatedly, a design pattern can help standardise your solution.
In the world of software development, design patterns are more than just tools or techniques; they are guiding principles that facilitate the creation of robust, maintainable, and scalable software systems. By understanding and applying design patterns appropriately, you empower yourself to tackle complex design challenges with confidence, ultimately contributing to the success of your software projects. Design patterns are the architect's blueprint, the artist's palette, and the engineer's roadmap—all rolled into one. They are the keys to unlocking the full potential of your software development endeavours.
Till the next time keep Learning-Coding-and-Growing.
Just pray I will get some spare time to write all Design Patterns, mentioned here, in detail.
Top comments (6)
I'd better say that design patterns are blueprints to overcome language design flaws, originated on the implemented paradigm.
Let me elaborate real quick; if you use pure functional programming, the things you cannot accomplish on a straightforward manner are side effects, for which you have "design patterns" called Monads.
When the GoF first published the book they included a bunch of these related to Object Oriented paradigm. Some of them are no longer required in Java as it now implements functional programming paradigm techniques like lambda expressions, which renders certain design patterns obsolete (the flaw in a paradigm is solved by using a different paradigm instead).
I really don't think it's useful to talk about design patterns in JavaScript or any other multi-paradigm language as you may use the paradigm that best suits an algorithm instead adding a bunch of code to solve a flaw you don't really have.
E.g. you're using FP and you need side-effects, just code this bits and pieces in OOP instead.
E.g.2 you're coding mostly in OOP and you need to solve any algorithm that in OOP would require a design pattern, just use FP for that. Factory design pattern? It's just a lambda expression!
There is one question, I currently have no clear answer to:
What is "software" ?
Would you call a scientific text "software", just because it was written on a computer?
This was clear for a long time: A text is called "data", the textprocessor is "software", but this is not so easy to distinguish on the web. Is a web page "software"? People that think, HTML is a programming language possibly would agree. Is a CSS library that provides menues "software" or "styling"? Do the "software design patterns" apply to web design? I really do not know....
Software is simply a collection of step by step instructions, that tells computer what to do [Trying to put the simplest definition]. You can say that text-processor is also a software but it is not only software.
I can call "creation of just a static webpage" is use of software not a creation of software. "HTML is a programming language or not" is a topic of debate over the decade now, don't want to waste time on that.
Coming on your real question, Do the "software design patterns" apply to web design?
First you need to understand that "software design" this is not that PSDs (designs) given to web developer for creating the mark-ups. The Web has been evolved a lot in last 8 years post launch of ES6. If we are creating a web application yes we can definitely use design patterns into that, if you are creating web framework/library definitely you would be using for too many places.
Hope this solves your doubt, if not we an keep continue this thread.
I think, it is important to distinguish the different levels, as things tend to be a bit mixed up today. If you reduce "software" to this basic definition, any word document is a program, as it tells the computer what to display. Finally it comes out Goethe was a programmer, which does not lead far.
Programming includes the ability to implement any kind of algorithms, so if we distinguish software and data, a document is a piece of data, and a word processor is a piece of software, that handles this data. That said, HTML is a data format (like XML), and a browser is the software that displays this data. Your abiltiy to implement algorithms in HTML will be fairly limited. If you want to count from 0 to 100, you have only one option: write down all the numbers. If you use Javascript, you can use a for-loop, which does the same in just one line of code.
Design patterns are important to any kind of "software", they are a bit above algorithms, as they do not define only, what a computer should do, but how you structure your code. But design patterns belong to the "active part" of your page. They do not tell you, how to make the result applealing. They tell you, how to build the machine. And this - is very depending on the machine you use.
If you go with React, useful design pattern will be completely different than if you go with Svelte or with vanilla. So, it is important to mention the context you are dealing with.
This long comment with various information, initially confuses me what is your curiosity in it? The examples you have used to distinguish the softwares are nice. By reaching till the end of your comment, I got to know that you are feeling like the context is missing in the article, so here it is "I talked about Design Patterns, in general". There was no mention about any programming language, definitely they vary in every programming language. Don't worry! I will keep writing and posting, which might clear (reader and writer)'s doubt. :)
There is nothing wrong with your text, thank you for that. But every design pattern has a context in which it is useful. Especially in web design it´s important to mention this context, as pages mix content, functional elements and programming. I think it is important to distinguish between content design patterns and software design pattern, as this are completely different kinds of shoes.