Developers might have heard about Design Patterns, but some may not even know what they are and the purpose they serve. On the other hand, some don’t find design patterns valuable because they have no idea of the value design patterns can bring to custom web application development.
Read: Design Patterns in Java
The fact here is designing object-oriented web applications is complex but developing reusable object-oriented software is even more complicated. The software design must be able to handle a standard set of problems at hand but should be general enough to address future requirements. Besides, after finishing the design, experienced developers usually reuse it multiple times and modify it for betterment.
Read: Data-Oriented Programming in Java
That’s why, in this blog, we will learn and understand the concept of design patterns, their benefits, use cases, and types.
Let's begin right away!
What are Design Patterns?
Design patterns are the reusable solution for a repetitive set of problems. Rather than being a finished design that gets transformed into source code, a design pattern is a template that defines how one can solve a problem, therefore, gets used in different situations.
Design patterns speed the process of web app development by providing proven and tested paradigms. As new code might hide the subtle issues that take time to be detected, effective design patterns should consider the issues that can arise later in the implementation stage. Majorly design patterns are used to support object-oriented programming.
Read: Factory Design Pattern in Java
Moreover, like off-the-shelf libraries or functions, you cannot just find a pattern and copy it into the project’s source code. Put simply, instead of being a specific set of code design patterns are general concepts that developers can use to resolve a problem by following the pattern details and implementing a solution that is ideal for the software requirements.
The pattern usually shows the interactions and relationships between objects or classes. When you develop a web application using these patterns, the programming language used doesn’t matter. It represents an idea that improves code flexibility, maintainability, and reusability.
Benefits of Custom Web Application Design Patterns
Some of the benefits that developers, as well as business owners, can achieve by implementing the design patterns in developing a custom web application are:
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It helps analyze abstract areas in the source code by offering well-tested solutions.
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By giving you a clear understanding of design implementation, design patterns allow you to write code swiftly.
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It improves code reusability.
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Encourages changes by providing tested paradigms for composition, delegation, and other non-inheritance reusability methods.
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Design patterns offer flexibility in creating objects in certain use cases.
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Code can be read more easily by developers thanks to design patterns.
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Reduces the learning time for new developers to solve problems.
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Most importantly, design patterns increase the efficiency and productivity of the project.
Read: Custom software development
Even though design patterns have numerous benefits, they are not the ideal solution for every problem that might emerge in software development. Conclusively, developers must address these challenges and adapt the solution accordingly.
Types of Web Application Design Patterns
Now that we know what design patterns are, it is time to move ahead with the design pattern types that one can use to develop web applications. The design pattern has three major categories:
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Creational Design Pattern
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Structural Design Pattern
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Behavioral Design Pattern
1. Creational Design Pattern
Creation design patterns focus on creating objects and class instantiation. It abstracts the initialization process and creates a web application system independent of how an object and class are built and represented.
Class creational patterns and object creational patterns represent the additional division of the creational design pattern where,
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Instantiated classes are diversified by a class creational pattern through inheritance.
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An object creational pattern delegates instantiation to other objects.
In the creational design pattern, there are two recurring themes:
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Information about the classes the system uses is encapsulated.
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Hides data on how class instances are created and put together.
Therefore, with the creational pattern, you get a lot of flexibility about what is created, who creates it, how, and when. Factory method, singleton pattern, builder pattern, abstract factory, and prototype pattern are the types of creational patterns being used by developers.
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The factory method doesn’t specify the exact class before creating objects.
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Singleton pattern makes sure that just one object instance is created.
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Builder Pattern creates complex objects.
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Abstract Factory creates objects without defining the concrete type.
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Prototype Pattern uses an existing object to create a new one.
2. Structural Design Pattern
The structural design pattern defines how objects and classes are merged and create larger structures. The class pattern in structural design pattern uses inheritance for implementations or combining interfaces. While the structural object pattern defines how objects can be composed to bring new functionality.
Adapter, Bridge, Composite, Decorator, Facade, Proxy, and Flyweight are the types of structural design patterns that are mostly used by developers. It is now important to ask, what do these structural patterns do?
Let’s move ahead to answer this question and see for ourselves.
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The Adapter Design Pattern (wrapper) wraps existing classes in an interface so that two discordant classes can work together.
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Bridge Design Pattern (handle) lets two classes independently vary by abstraction decoupling.
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Composite Design Pattern composes objects into a tree structure and represents a part-whole hierarchy. It allows clients to treat different objects and their compositions uniformly.
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Decorator Design Pattern dynamically assigns additional responsibilities to objects instead of using extended functionality subclasses.
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Proxy Design Pattern offers placeholders for different objects and controls their access.
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Facade Design Pattern defines the higher level of interface and makes it easier to use subsystems. It also provides a unified interface to set subsystem interfaces.
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Flyweight Design Pattern uses sharing and supports a large number of smaller objects effectively.
3. Behavioral Design Pattern
Behavioral design patterns deal with algorithms and object responsibility designation. It describes the patterns of objects or classes and their communication patterns. The control flow is complex, which can be a challenge to follow when running so a behavioral design pattern permeates the control flow.
It uses inheritance to divide characteristics between classes. The behavioral design pattern is divided into a chain of responsibility, command pattern, interpreter pattern, iterator pattern, mediator pattern, memento pattern, observer pattern, state pattern, strategy pattern, template method, and visitor pattern.
Let's understand what we mean by these different behavioral design patterns.
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Chain of Responsibility doesn’t combine the sender with the receiver and gives multiple objects a chance to manage the request. It delegates commands to the processing objects chain.
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Command lets developers parameterize clients with different log or queue requests while supporting operations that cannot be fulfilled by encapsulating object requests.
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The Interpreter defines an interpreter based on the grammar representation of a programming language along with its grammar representation.
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The Iterator accesses the object’s elements without revealing the underlying representation.
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Mediator promotes loose coupling between objects by stopping objects from explicitly referring to each other by encapsulating how the set of objects interacts.
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Memento captures and objectifies the internal state of the object for easy restoration to this state without compromising encapsulation.
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Observer defines one-to-many object dependencies to notify and update its dependents whenever an object’s state changes.
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The State enables an object to change its behavior with internal changes in its state.
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Strategy defines algorithms, encapsulation, and interchangeability. It also allows algorithms to independently change according to the clients.
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An algorithm skeleton is defined by the Template Method. It also enables subclasses to redefine a few steps of the algorithm without changing its structure.
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The Visitor describes an operation to be performed on the object structure’s elements. It allows developers to define an operation without changing the elements on which it works.
Ways to Choose & Use a Design Pattern
Choosing the ideal design pattern can be difficult, especially if the design patterns are new and unfamiliar to you. To find a suitable design pattern for your problem, you can try several different approaches:
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Consider how design patterns solve design problems.
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Scan Intent sections.
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Study how design patterns interrelate.
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Study patterns of like purpose.
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Examine the cause of redesign.
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Consider what should be variable in your design.
Once you have picked the ideal design pattern, it is essential to understand the approach to apply that design pattern successfully. So here are the steps that you need to follow:
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Get an overview of the design pattern to understand its applicability and downsides.
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Make sure you understand the objects, classes, and their relationships with one another in the pattern.
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Go through the sample code to understand the pattern implementation.
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Choose meaningful names for participants in pattern to make the implementation more explicit.
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Declare classes and interfaces, define inheritance relationships, and create instance variables to represent object and data references.
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Identify existing classes in the application and modify them.
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Define operation names in the pattern according to the application.
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Implement operations in the pattern to carry out the collaborations and responsibilities.
Conclusion
So that was it for the blog. We hope you understand design patterns and why they are crucial in web app development. But you must apprehend that design patterns should not be implemented indiscriminately. Moreover, design patterns must be applied when the flexibility they can offer is needed.
On the other hand, if you are a business owner who wants to build a web application by following design patterns’ guidance, then hire experienced developers from companies like Decipher Zone Technologies.
Still have queries regarding custom web application development? Then get in touch with our experts now!