Design patterns provide many benefits when it comes to coding and software development. They are essentially blueprints to help guide and solve problems through the process of designing software. While there are three types of design patterns, the one I will be focusing on here is behavioral patterns. Behavioral design patterns mostly focus on the assignment of responsibilities between objects and help with communications between those objects.
There are many different types of behavioral design patterns. Some of these patterns include:
- Chain pf Responsibility
- Command
- Interpreter
- Mediator
- Memento
- Observer
- State
- Strategy
- Template Method
- Visitor
All of these of different uses along with different pros and cons. For example, command patterns turns request into stand-alone objects called a command. This pattern allows you to capture each component of a request allowing the undo and redo of operations. However, this may cause overcomplications of code because of the layer between senders and receivers. Design patterns are easily customizable to help you approach any problem and provide solutions to many problems you may be having within development.
We’ve begun to touch on design patterns within class using UML diagrams and showing different ways to solve problems. We used the example of a duck class and different types of ducks. More duck types were added that were unusual types of ducks that had different behavior types. We used a couple different methods to help make the program work including overriding, interfaces, and behavior types. Each of these solutions had different pros and cons depending on what the user wanted out of the program.
All-in-all, each different type of design pattern has their own uses and downfalls. When working with design patterns, understand what a client or users want out of a program is key to really determining what design pattern to actually use.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Works for Me by Seth Boudreau and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.