Why Design Patterns Are Important In Software Engineering
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Design patterns in software engineering are general, repeatable solutions for common design problems that facilitate communication between developers and streamline project onboarding. They allow for efficient problem-solving by providing off-the-shelf solutions to specific situations, such as creational, structural, and behavioral patterns. Key design patterns include Singleton, Factory, Abstract Factory, Builder, and Prototype patterns, each of which addresses different instantiation and object creation challenges.
Why Design Patterns Are Important In Software Engineering
- 1. Software Engineering Why Design Patterns are Important in proteloinc.com | 916.943.4428
- 2. What is a design pattern? In software engineering, a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.
- 3. Why are design patterns important? For a very long time there was a serious problem in software engineering: you hire a newcomer to a project and no matter how well they know the programming language, it takes them months to get up to speed with how things are done in your project before they can be productive. The software industry has been trying to come up with ways to improve this. Standardization of programming languages was one way. Standard libraries (class libraries nowadays) has been another way; however, one of the most important ways has perhaps been design patterns. So, are design patterns important? VERY.
- 4. There are two substantial reasons for the existence of design patterns. The second benefit of design patterns is that they are off-the-shelf solution-forms for common problem-forms. If you know your patterns and encounter a problem where you need to find a good way to get information from possibly multiple producer objects to multiple consumer objects without introducing unnecessary coupling between classes, you will recognize “this is a job for an Observer!” You will immediately know how to solve your problem. 2.1. First, the use of design patterns streamlines communication between developers. If you and I both understand that when I say “Observer,” I am talking about a very specific structure of code, that means I can very quickly describe how a bit of code which uses that pattern works. The alternative is to fully describe the solution which is time-consuming and error-prone.
- 5. They allow you to quickly solve certain common classes of problems, and then when done, you can quickly communicate how you solved the problem. This is all associated with a caveat which should seem obvious. Don’t try to force problems into patterns that don’t fit. If the pattern doesn’t fit the problem, then the solution will end up being convoluted and contrived, and you will lose the effort reduction benefit of patterns. These benefits reinforce each other.
- 6. Creational Design Patterns: Creational design patterns provide solutions to instantiate an object in the best possible way for specific situations. Singleton patterns: Singleton patterns, the most popular pattern, restricts the instantiation of a class and ensures that only one instance of the class exists in the java virtual machine. Factory pattern: Factory pattern is used when we have a super class with multiple sub-classes and, based on input, we need to return one of the sub-classes. This pattern removes the responsibility of instantiation of a class from the client program to the factory class. Abstract Factory Pattern Abstract Factory pattern is similar to Factory pattern and it’s factory of factories. If you are familiar with factory design pattern in java, you will notice that we have a single Factory class that returns the different sub-classes based on the input provided, and factory class uses if-else or switch statement to achieve this. In Abstract Factory pattern, we get rid of the if-else block and have a factory class for each sub-class, and then an Abstract Factory class that will return the sub-class based on the input factory class. Java Design Patterns are Divided Into Three Categories: Creational, Structural, and Behavioral
- 7. Abstract Factory Pattern: Abstract Factory pattern is similar to Factory pattern and it’s factory of factories. If you are familiar with factory design pattern in java, you will notice that we have a single Factory class that returns the different sub-classes based on the input provided, and factory class uses if-else or switch statement to achieve this. In Abstract Factory pattern, we get rid of the if-else block and have a factory class for each sub-class, and then an Abstract Factory class that will return the sub-class based on the input factory class. Builder Pattern: This pattern was introduced to solve some of the problems with Factory and Abstract Factory design patterns when the Object contains a lot of attributes. Builder pattern solves the issue with large numbers of optional parameters and an inconsistent state by providing a way to build the object step-by-step and provide a method that will return the final Object. Prototype Pattern: Prototype pattern is used when the Object creation is a costly affair, requires a lot of time and resources, and you have a similar object that already exists. This pattern provides a mechanism to copy the original object to a new ob- ject, and then modify it according to your needs. This pattern uses java cloning to copy the object. Prototype design pattern mandates that the Object which you are copying should provide the copying feature. It should not be done by any other class; however, whether to use shallow or deep copy of the Object properties de- pends on the requirements and is a design decision. Since we’ve only scratched the surface on this topic, more to come…
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