PHP Design patterns
A series on different design patterns on PHP.
I plan to start a series on PHP design patterns, and different use cases and help you understand when you can pick one over the other. And I hope that after you finish reading my posts you get a better understanding.
Definition
First things first, What is a Design pattern?
A design pattern is a general reusable solution to a common problem that occurs in software design.
Keep in mind that design patterns are not complete designs or finished code rather, they are proven development paradigms that can contribute to building robust and scalable software systems.
Benefits
Communication and Collaboration: Design patterns establish a common vocabulary and set of concepts that developers can use to communicate effectively. For example, you and your team members when discussing something can say: “Oh, use adapter for that”, and everyone will understand.
Flexibility: Design patterns make software systems more flexible and adaptable to change. So it is much easier to understand and change a well-proven and well-established design pattern known by the community.
Maintainability: When developers follow well-established patterns, it becomes easier for teams to understand, modify, and extend the codebase over time. This is particularly important for long-term projects.
Scalability: They promote a modular and organized code structure, making it easier to add new features, modify existing ones, or scale the application without causing widespread disruptions.
Design Patterns
Design patterns differ from each other in their complexity, usage, intent, and purpose.
The most basic and low-level patterns are often called idioms. They usually apply only to a single programming language.
The most universal and high-level patterns are architectural patterns. Developers can implement these patterns in virtually any language.
Below is the list of design patterns.
1. Creational Patterns:
Creational design patterns concern the creation of objects themselves. The main usage of Creational design patterns is to separate the instantiation of a class from the usage of that instance.
Examples:
- Dependency Injection
- Factory/Abstract Factory
- Singleton
- Prototype
2. Structural Design Patterns
Explain how to assemble objects and classes into larger structures, while keeping the structures flexible and efficient. It serves as a blueprint for how basic classes can be combined to form bigger entities, all Structural design patterns involve the interconnections between objects.
Examples:
- Adapter
- Bridge
- Facade
- Proxy
3. Behavior Design Patterns
Take care of effective communication and the assignment of responsibilities between objects.
Behavioral design patterns work to explain how objects interact with each other; how they can send messages between each of the objects and how you can divide the steps of various tasks up among classes.
Examples:
- Observer
- State
- Iterator
- Chain Of Responsibility
4. Architectural Design Patterns*
This is not strictly a design pattern, but it is incredibly relevant for PHP developers due to the web-oriented nature of PHP
Examples:
- Service Locator
- Repository
- MVC (Model View Controller)
- Microservices
By understanding and applying design patterns, developers can create software that is more modular, maintainable, and scalable.
In upcoming articles, I will try and tackle different design patterns with examples and use cases so we can understand them better in detail.
Remember that the challenging part of design patterns is knowing when to use one and most importantly which.
As a final note 💭
Mastering design patterns represents a valuable skill in the journey of becoming a proficient software architect.
PS: Keep an eye out for the upcoming posts 😉.
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