Using Design Patterns for Effective Programming Practices

Writing clean, efficient and bug-free code is a major challenge that all programmers of all levels often face. A number of coding and design principles are out there that can be utilized to design programs effectively, debug them quickly and improve the overall efficiency of the software product. Using design patterns have become a popular way of writing code which not only helps to craft high performing projects but adds a layer of maintainability and readability to the code.

What is a Design Pattern?

A design pattern is a reusable solution for a commonly occurring problems in software development world. Design patterns are geared towards solving major software design problems or providing a general-well structure for collaboration between objects. A number of ready-made design patterns are available which helps the programmer to understand the system easily and avoids reinventing the wheels.

Benefits of Using Design patterns

• Design patterns help software architects to structure their classes in such a way that they produce agile and scalable software.
• Design patterns help in modeling complicated software. They provide a structured way to design and architect the application in such a way that it can be easily maintained.
• Design patterns help improving code readability, making it more comprehensive and easier to debug and enhance code.
• Design patterns help in organizing code in such a way that it produces a powerful and extensible architecture.
• Design patterns break up the code and manage it in different components making it easier to focus on individual project needs.

Types of Design Patterns

Most of the Design Patterns fall into one of three categories:

• Creational Patterns: As the name suggests, Creational Patterns creates objects for a program. Most popular of the patterns are Singleton and Factory pattern.
• Structural Patterns: Structural Design Patterns define the relationships between classes and objects. These patterns primarily concentrate on simplifying the design by classifying the relationships. Popular patterns are Adapter, Facade and Proxy.
• Behavioral Patterns: Behavioral Patterns define the communication between different objects in a system. These Patterns have the ability to solve their large and frustrating problems. Some of the design patterns in this category are Iterator, Observer and State.

Where to Start with Design Patterns?

To start with Design Patterns, you first need to understand the basics of the language you’re using. Once you’re comfortable with the syntax and structure of the language, you can start learning the design patterns. You can start by reading about the different types of design patterns in books and online tutorials. There are a number of online resources available which can help you build an understanding of design patterns.

Frameworks and Libraries

Most of the design patterns have already been implemented in popular libraries and frameworks such as ReactJS, VueJS, Expressjs, Python Django Rest Framework, Nginx and Gunicorn, Celery, Visual Studio etc. It is always recommended to use the popular libraries and frameworks over reinventing the wheel. Usually frameworks use design patterns to ensure their applications are maintainable and reusable.

Conclusion

Design Patterns are a great way to write efficient code which is easy to maintain and understand. Understanding the design patterns is a major requirement for most of the software development jobs and is also a great way to gain a competitive edge in the job market. Design patterns help to break complex problems and solve them in a systematic way. The biggest advantage of using Design patterns is that they help to structure the code and keep it reusable, extensible and maintainable.