The Role of Software Design Patterns in Building Robust Applications

• By Prashant Pujara
• 07-08-2023
• Software

Design patterns are templates for addressing recurring issues in software development. Code that follows these principles is easier to maintain, modularize, and scale. Design patterns are crucial in today's backend development for constructing dependable, flexible systems that can evolve to meet new challenges and user expectations. The most widely-used patterns in current backend programming will be covered in this lesson. We will also examine their practical applications.

Design patterns are tried and true methods for fixing typical software engineering issues. They can be used with any software system and are not limited to any language or platform. Hire Top Mobile App Development Company in USA for your next project.

What are Design Patterns?

Design patterns are reusable frameworks in software engineering that solve recurring design issues. One cannot simply take a design pattern and start writing code. It's a generalized explanation or model for how to address a specific issue.

Where Software Design Patterns Came From

It was in the 1994 book "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by the "Gang of Four" (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides) that the idea of design patterns was first introduced to the world. This software engineering classic contained a total of 23 different design patterns.

Applications of Design Patterns

By providing tried-and-true development paradigms, design patterns help to shorten the time it takes to create new software. Problems with the software may not become apparent until much later in the development process. For programmers and architects familiar with the patterns, reusing them helps minimize small problems that can snowball into major ones and makes the code easier to comprehend.

It's common for folks to have a narrow understanding of software design methodologies. Applying these methods to a wider variety of issues is challenging. Design patterns are reusable solutions to common problems, documented in a way that avoids problem-specific details if possible.

Patterns also facilitate developer collaboration by providing common terminology for discussing program behaviors. Design patterns that are widely used can be refined to make them stronger than haphazard ones. Custom Software Development Services can take your business to great heights.

Design patterns, categorized

According to their function, design patterns can be broken down into the following three broad categories:

1. Creational patterns

The creational patterns are procedures for making new objects in a planned and contextual way. They contribute to simplifying and stabilizing systems and allowing for more code reuse and adaptability. Constructional patterns include the Singleton, Factory, Prototype, and Builder.

2. Structural patterns

The structural patterns are guidelines for efficiently and effectively constructing large-scale systems out of smaller, more modular components utilizing objects and classes.

Connecting application components is made easier with structural patterns, which is especially useful for more complicated applications. The structural patterns Adapter, Bridge, Decorator, and Facade are all examples.

3. Behavioral patterns

Observable behavioral patterns facilitate interaction between components. They worry about how things work together and who is responsible for what. Some common examples are the Chain of Responsibility, Iterator, Mediator, Observer, and Strategy patterns. The goal is to streamline the processes involved.

New patterns that work well with distributed systems have been sought out by developers as well. One such pattern is the increasingly popular microservices architecture.

These new buildings have given rise to new, reoccurring problems and their most efficient remedies. Examples include decomposition (into business domains or subdomains), API gateways, aggregates, sagas, and sidecars.

What is it about this pattern that makes it so desirable?

Design patterns provide tried-and-true paradigms and code snippets for software developers looking to save time and avoid common pitfalls. The standards for efficient software development are set, and any issues that may be fixed before deployment should be obvious.

Software architects knowledgeable about patterns can use this technology to fix bugs and enhance the code's readability and style. A design pattern is a tool that helps designers use novel problem-solving methods. To assist you in choosing specific valid codes to address particular software design difficulties, design patterns give clear answers written intelligibly.

Different web app design patterns to consider for your company

Regarding web development projects, businesses need help knowing where to start. Teams of all experience levels can benefit greatly from starting with web application design patterns. Web application design patterns are necessary for any web development project looking to succeed.

Even the most skilled programmers could have trouble if the technology is complicated or there is too much data for a development team to process. Design patterns for web applications are crucial for setting project standards and ensuring consistency. Considering the wide variety of programming languages, a web application design pattern might be useful for standardizing a project's code and other aspects. Here are the four most common web app design patterns and when you should utilize each one:

1. Singleton pattern design

In a singleton design pattern, just one instance of a class or object is allowed. Its purpose is to control the general functioning of a program. Additionally, it stops many components and logs from running at once, which might lead to unexpected problems. For instance, a logger records system activity through entries or messages. However, when using a singleton pattern, there is no need to worry about retrieving logs from the primary application. There is also zero room for error because logs can be retrieved anywhere in the codebase.

2. The pattern of observing in design

Users of web apps or mobile apps will commonly face the observer pattern. The purpose of the observer pattern is to forge a connection between a topic and the people observing it. People are keeping an eye out for updates. Almost instantly, audiences are made aware of a shift in subject. Use cases include informing users of changes to subscription terms and conditions. This is typically used in tandem with various sorts of filters and menus.

Modcloth, like many other popular apparel businesses, uses various filters to meet its customers' needs better. You can narrow your search for a new wardrobe by selecting certain items from a filtered list. On the other hand, the observer design pattern is required whenever a web app needs input from the user.

3. Framework for designing strategies

It's a sophisticated method that puts the onus on the end user. Customers who follow these instructions will be sent to this road, and users who opt to carry out this method will do so. Customer journeys in their entirety must be considered while designing for customers.

Payment options are simply one illustration. Buying things online used to be much simpler. Customers would make purchases and pay with plastic. Many different purchase options are now available, including Apple Pay and PayPal. Your business could only improve if alternative payment options besides credit cards exist. Customers are more inclined to buy if they have more options. As market conditions evolve, you can adapt your plan in real-time with the help of a strategy design pattern.

This web app design pattern, nevertheless, has adequate flexibility and clarity despite the availability of numerous customization options.

4. Decoration Pattern in Web Development

The decorator pattern is a specific case of the abstract pattern. It's based on a basic class but allows for specialized implementations of its methods and properties. Have you ever tried to dine out during the craziness that is the midday meal? Common to various eating platforms is the decorator pattern of design.

The web app is topping only some burgers ordered at once with your special toppings if you select them. Using the decorator approach, end-users can alter the base class's behavior without affecting other properties.

5. The Pattern of Assembly Line Design

The factory method is a "creation" design pattern that allows a class to defer instantiation to subclasses while still producing objects with a shared interface. As a "virtual constructor" that can be used by any class that implements the interface, the factory method encourages loose coupling and code reuse by giving subclasses more control over the objects they generate. The factory can be expanded to include more types as needed.

When applying a design pattern like the factory method, developers risk making things more complicated than they need to be.

6. Facade Layout

The facade design pattern is an example of a "structural" design pattern that simplifies access to multiple objects and vast amounts of code using a single, unified interface (class). Facades hide the intricacies of multiple subsystems (often arranged into a class) behind a single, straightforward interface. Rather than communicating (interfacing) with several systems to support the sale, such as product inventories, authentication, security, payment processing, order fulfillment, etc., a customer of an online store would prefer to deal with a single point of contact.

The consumer is oblivious to the system's inner workings because the Facade has encapsulated all the "order" operations and systems to present a single interface. The idea of a facade is crucial to the success of a microservices architecture with few coupling points.

7. Constructor Design Pattern

The builder design pattern is "creational," as it divides the process of making an entity from its representation. In addition to providing a more gradual approach to design (via the ConcreteBuilder phase), this design pattern also decouples the representation, allowing alternative representations of an object to share the same underlying creation code.

The builder pattern runs in sequence as the object is being constructed, only invoking the required procedures for each new instance of the object.

8. Design Pattern: Adapter

The adapter design pattern is a "wrapper" that changes one interface type into another. When two classes are incompatible, the adapter design pattern can bridge the gap and make the two operate together. Adapter patterns can convert many interface types into a unified application programming interface.

Using Software Design Patterns and Its Benefits

Using software design patterns can help you in numerous ways. Among these are:

• It is possible to avoid "reinventing the wheel" by using design patterns. It reduces the time needed to create a product by borrowing the efforts of programmers who have gone before you. In this blog post, I'll demonstrate one such method by combining the Java @FindBy tag with the Selenium page factory.
• Common design flaws can be avoided, and resilient code can be written thanks to design patterns.
• Design patterns can boost software quality by cutting down on problems when used properly.
• Design patterns can cut development times in half by improving software's reusability and maintainability.
• The iterator pattern, the factory pattern, and the strategy pattern are all examples of OO design patterns that adhere to the idea of "encapsulating what varies." A more adaptable and reliable software architecture is the result of such partitioning. As a result, design patterns provide a versatile approach to addressing challenges in software development. They allow software changes to be made without requiring a complete system reboot.
• Design patterns offer reusable answers to the challenges of software development. They make it possible for the program to evolve quickly in response to new requirements.
• Program consistency and best practices can be maintained by design patterns' systematic approach to program design.
• Since design patterns are generally accepted and understood, they provide a common language for discussing software design. Using design patterns, developers can more easily discuss their code.

Conclusion

Due to their systematic approach to fixing typical issues, design patterns are crucial in today's backend development. Several positive outcomes can result from employing design patterns, such as increased code reuse, scalability, maintainability, lowered error rates, and enhanced performance.

This course covered some of the most often used design patterns in backend development, such as Model-View-Controller (MVC), Repository (Repository), Dependency Injection (DI), Observer (Observer), and Decorator (Decorator). We've included TypeScript code samples and real-world examples demonstrating how to use these patterns. By learning and applying these patterns, programmers can create code that is easy to modify to meet new needs without sacrificing performance or scalability.

Using design patterns in the backend development process is crucial for making high-quality, long-lasting applications. Custom Software Development Services must be hired for your next project.