Mastering Design Patterns: Crafting Elegant Solutions with a Confidence — Petr Balogh

Design patterns are standard solutions to common software design problems that have been refined over time

Three main categories of design patterns:

• Creational Patterns (focus on object creation mechanisms)
• Structural Patterns (deal with object composition)
• Behavioral Patterns (define communication patterns between objects)

Key benefits of using design patterns:

• Enhanced code readability
• Promotes code reuse
• Improves maintainability
• Creates common vocabulary among developers
• Saves time by providing pre-tested solutions
• Makes systems more flexible and adaptable

Common design pattern examples:

• Singleton: Ensures only one instance of a class exists
• Factory Method: Abstracts object creation logic
• Adapter: Allows incompatible interfaces to work together
• Bridge: Separates abstraction from implementation
• Observer: Defines one-to-many dependencies between objects
• Strategy: Encapsulates interchangeable algorithms

Practical applications:

• Database connections management
• Cross-platform development
• UI frameworks
• Event handling systems
• Payment processing
• Logging systems
• Legacy system integration

The Gang of Four book “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” remains a fundamental reference for design patterns, written 30 years ago

Design patterns encapsulate best practices while supporting the open/closed principle - allowing extension without modifying existing code