Software Design

DESIGN PATTERNS: THE SECRET TO WRITING BRILLIANT CODE

Michael Nyamande

Jul 5, 2020 • 6 min read

You're not alone if you've ever found yourself stuck on a problem for days (or even weeks!) – it's a common frustration for developers. To date, over 50 billion lines of code have been written, yet we are constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, spending time and energy writing and designing software from scratch. What if you could leverage the collective brilliance of over 50 years of programming knowledge to solve your problems faster and more efficiently? That’s where Design Patterns come in.

Design patterns are a proven way to improve your code and become a more efficient and effective developer. They provide solutions to commonly occurring problems in software design and can help you speed up your development process, communicate more effectively with other developers, and follow best practices to produce high-quality code. So why not leverage the creative genius of former software engineering greats and discover the secret to writing brilliant code?

WHAT ARE DESIGN PATTERNS

Design patterns are solutions to commonly occurring problems in software design. They are essentially a set of best practices that have been developed through the collective experience and knowledge of the programming community. These patterns can help you speed up your development process by providing tested and proven approaches to solving specific problems.

“Learning from your mistakes makes you smart. Learning from other people’s mistakes makes you a genius. “, don’t you want to be a genius ?

These patterns can help speed up your development process by providing tested and proven development paradigms. For example, if you need to ensure that there is only one instance of an object in your application, you can use the singleton pattern. If you want to use a component with an incompatible API, you can use the adapter pattern. And if you need to choose between different implementations of the same functionality at runtime, you can use the strategy pattern. There is a pattern for almost every problem a programmer might encounter (except maybe finding a girlfriend – you'll have to work on that one yourself).

Free code ?

It's important to note that a design pattern is not code that you can simply copy and paste into your application and expect to work. Rather, they provide a blueprint or plan for how to approach a problem in a way that is efficient, readable, and maintainable. They are like an architectural blueprint for building a house – they provide a guide for how to construct something, but they are not the actual finished product.

Have you ever wondered why there is a software programmer, software developer, and software engineer? What’s the distinction between these titles? Well, a programmer is anyone who can whip up running code, it may not be the prettiest or most well-factored or even efficient code, but it gets the job done. Developers are just programmers who have been around for a while and now realize they have to maintain their code, so no more quick fixes, ambiguous variable names, or unreadable code — this is probably where you are right now. Software engineers, on the other hand, treat their work as a craft that they are constantly improving. They read up on best practices( design patterns) and plan and engineer what they build to make sure it's up to standard and efficient. To drive home the point, programmer = bad, developer = ok, engineer = awesome.

Design patterns also help a lot with readability; this is very important; as a developer/engineer, you rarely write code alone, and your code should communicate itself well with other developers. As design patterns are widely used in programming, utilizing them in your code will make it easier to understand for others. When other developers see an AccountBuilder class in your code, they now know this class is following the builder pattern and returns an account object. It adds a level of professionalism when you no longer have to say “ I passed in these objects into our constructor ,instead of creating them internally ,to reduce operations performed our class and make it more focused “, yes, this shows you know what you’re doing but wouldn’t you rather say “ I used Dependency Injection to ensure our class is highly cohesive and loosely coupled ,following the Single Responsibility Principle “.

Benefits of Using Design Patterns

So why should you use design patterns in your code? There are several benefits to doing so:

Improved Code Efficiency and Readability

Design patterns can help you write code that is more efficient and easier to read. By following a consistent structure and style, your code will be easier to understand and work with, which can save time and effort in the long run. This is especially important if you are working on a team, as well-designed code that follows design patterns is easier for other developers to understand and work with.

Ability to Communicate with Other Developers

Design patterns are widely recognized and understood in the programming community, which means that by using them in your code, you can more easily communicate your ideas and solutions to other developers. This can be especially helpful when working on a team or when sharing your code with others.

Faster Development Process

By relying on tried-and-true solutions, you can avoid the time and effort needed to come up with a new solution to a common problem. Design patterns provide a proven approach to tackling specific challenges, which can help you speed up your development process.

Improved Reusability, Scalability, and Maintainability

Design patterns can help you build code that is flexible and adaptable, which makes it easier to reuse in different projects and scale to meet changing needs. Well-designed code that follows design patterns is also easier to maintain and update over time, which can save you time and effort in the long run.

Following Best Practices and Producing High-Quality Code

Design patterns represent the collective wisdom and experience of the programming community, so using them in your code helps to ensure that you are following best practices and producing high-quality code. This can help to improve the overall quality of your projects and make you a more valuable developer or engineer.

DESIGN PATTERNS IN THE WILD

Another benefit to learning and using Design Patterns is that they are widely used. No matter what language you use, there is a great use of these patterns; take a look at how Angular, a frontend JavaScript framework, and Spring, a serverside Java framework both extensively use Dependency Injection. Django, a popular python web framework, makes heavy use of the decorator pattern for authentication. Reactive extensions or Rx, a library with implementation in almost every language (RxJs, RxJava, RxSwift, Rx.NET, RxScala, etc), make heavy usage of the Observer Pattern. Learning these patterns will help you better understand the framework you’re using and use them more efficiently. Regardless of what programming language you use, or the field you’re in, learning design patterns will help you write better and more brilliant code.

SO ARE YOU READY TO LEARN ABOUT DESIGN PATTERNS?

Here I some resources I would recommend:

Conclusion

Design patterns are a powerful tool for improving your code and becoming a better developer or engineer. By leveraging the collective knowledge and experience of the programming community, you can solve common problems in a way that is efficient, readable, and maintainable. So the next time you encounter a tough problem, don't reinvent the wheel – consider using a design pattern to find a tried-and-true solution. They can make a big difference in your projects and your career as a developer or engineer.

Did you enjoy this post? Feel free to like, leave a comment (good or bad ), or get in touch with me on social media.