Software design patterns

In software development, there are certain problems that recur in a certain context.

After repeated attempts at solving such problems, better solutions are discovered and refined over time. These solutions are known as design patterns, a term popularized by the seminal book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by the so-called "Gang of Four" (GoF) written by Eric Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides.

The common format to describe a pattern consists of the following components:

• Context: The situation or scenario where the design problem is encountered.
• Problem: The main difficulty to be resolved.
• Solution: The core of the solution. It is important to note that the solution presented only includes the most general details, which may need further refinement for a specific context.
• Anti-patterns (optional): Commonly used solutions, which are usually incorrect and/or inferior to the Design Pattern.
• Consequences (optional): Identifying the pros and cons of applying the pattern.
• Other useful information (optional): Code examples, known uses, other related patterns, etc.

Context

Certain classes should have no more than just one instance (e.g. the main controller class of the system). These single instances are commonly known as singletons.

Problem

A normal class can be instantiated multiple times by invoking the constructor.

Solution

Make the constructor of the singleton class private, because a public constructor will allow others to instantiate the class at will. Provide a public class-level method to access the single instance.

Example:

The <<Singleton>> in the class above uses the UML stereotype notation, which is used to (optionally) indicate the purpose or the role played by a UML element. In this example, the class Logic is playing the role of a Singleton class. The general format is <<role/purpose>>.

Here is the typical implementation of how the Singleton pattern is applied to a class:

class Logic {
    private static Logic theOne = null;

    private Logic() {
        ...
    }

    public static Logic getInstance() {
        if (theOne == null) {
            theOne = new Logic();
        }
        return theOne;
    }
}

    

    


    
    

Notes:

• The constructor is private, which prevents instantiation from outside the class.
• The single instance of the singleton class is maintained by a private class-level variable.
• Access to this object is provided by a public class-level operation getInstance() which instantiates a single copy of the singleton class when it is executed for the first time. Subsequent calls to this operation return the single instance of the class.

If Logic was not a Singleton class, an object is created like this:

Logic m = new Logic();

    

    


    
    

But now, the Logic object needs to be accessed like this:

Logic m = Logic.getInstance();

    

    


    
    

Pros:

• easy to apply
• effective in achieving its goal with minimal extra work
• provides an easy way to access the singleton object from anywhere in the code base

Cons:

• The singleton object acts like a global variable that increases coupling across the code base.
• In testing, it is difficult to replace Singleton objects with stubs (static methods cannot be overridden).
• In testing, singleton objects carry data from one test to another even when you want each test to be independent of the others.

Given that there are some significant cons, it is recommended that you apply the Singleton pattern when, in addition to requiring only one instance of a class, there is a risk of creating multiple objects by mistake, and creating such multiple objects has real negative consequences.

Context

Components need to access functionality deep inside other components.

The UI component of a Library system might want to access functionality of the Book class contained inside the Logic component.

Problem

Access to the component should be allowed without exposing its internal details. e.g. the UI component should access the functionality of the Logic component without knowing that it contains a Book class within it.

Solution

Include a class that sits between the component internals and users of the component such that all access to the component happens through the Facade class.

The following class diagram applies the Facade pattern to the Library System example. The LibraryLogic class is the Facade class.