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Design pattern (computer science)

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Design patterns are lessons that have been accumulated in the community of computer programming.

They allow one to make use of the knowledge of past designers. Many design projects are confronted with similar problems that demand similar solutions. A design pattern is an abstraction of the best solutions for a particular class of problems. MVC or model view controller triad is a classical example of design pattern. It was introduced 1980 in the Smalltalk system.

The book that introduced the term design pattern to software development, Design Patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software (commonly shortened to GoF) says:

[Design patterns] solve specific design problems and make object-oriented designs more flexible and elegant, and ultimately reusable. They help designers reuse successful designs by basing new designs on prior experience. A designer who is familiar with such patterns can apply them immediately to design problems without having to rediscover them.

In computer programming, the incredible gap in productivity between amateurs and experts is partly a difference in experience. Experts have weathered a variety of problems repeatedly. Typically experts end up with the same pattern to solve the problems as each other's. That is a design pattern. (GoF)

Each pattern comes up with the problem that happens again and again among programmers. Then it shows a typical solution for such a problem, if not the best solution, along with the trade-off, which is a convenient assessment to make prior to applying a potentially costly solution. It is important that patterns accompany a name because it makes possible to describe problems, solutions and talk about them with other folks.

For example the classical MVC pattern is actually a combination of three patterns listed below - Observer, Composite and Strategy. It is broadly used today.

Frequent problems that occur in programming are sometimes less commonly called anti-pattern.

See also amelioration pattern[?]

Fundamental patterns

Creational patterns

Structural patterns

Behavioral patterns

Concurrency patterns

RealTime patterns

Life cycle patterns

Social / other

Related Topics

Reference and External Links



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