DESIGN PATTERNS

Design patterns are like a how-to solution for resolving and avoiding coding problems, keeping code clean, reuseable, readable, and tight. The patterns provide a general solution to programming for specific types of problems. Following a design pattern can help accelerate the development process.

There are 23 official Gang of Four design patterns and three categories for design patterns, which include Creational, Structural, and Behavioral patterns.

The creational pattern gets its name from handling the creation of objects or instantiation of classes. Class patterns use Inheritance in the instantiation process. Object creation patterns use Delegation. Creational design patterns are the Abstract Factory, Builder, Factory Method, Prototype, and Singleton.

Structural patterns help us organize classes and objects in a way that provides new functionality. For instance, we can use an Adapter pattern to help 2 incompatible interfaces establish a relationship with one another.

Structural design patterns are Adapter, Bridge, Composite, Decorator, Facade, Flyweight, and Proxy.

Using the Decorator pattern, a lot of my coding utilizes Interfaces and the Implements statement to use abstract classes and set requirements for consistent class creation.

I use Inheritance quite a bit in my coding in order to allow additional functionality to an already existing class. Multiple classes can Inherit the parent functionality, and add their own functionality, hidden from other classes as required.

Behavioral patterns help us identify communication patterns between objects.

Behavioral patterns are Chain of Responsibility, Command, Interpreter, Iterator, Mediator, Memento, Observer, State, Strategy, Template Method, and Visitor.

For instance the Template pattern helps us create subclasses of a module, keeping the original behavior in tact, but allowing us to change the behavior for new requirements.