Design Patterns in C#

Explore various design patterns that exist in the C# programming language.

As developers, we would just think of finding temporary solutions that will work for a specific scenario. But with the ever-changing needs of clients/users at various stages of product development or often after the product has been released, software development typically requires a great deal of flexibility in design and architecture to accommodate the new changes.

It should be able to accept changes without any undesirable ripple effect that would necessitate the reworking of other potentially unrelated subsystems. It is frustrating and counterproductive to add features and components to modules that were never designed for extensibility. Sooner or later, closed, inflexible designs break under the weight of changes.

That’s when Design patterns are at the rescue.

What is a design pattern?

• A design pattern in C# is a reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software development that provides a blueprint for designing and implementing software systems.
• It is a description of a set of interacting classes that provide a framework for a solution to a generalized problem in a specific context or environment.
• Design patterns assist in laying the foundation for flexible architecture, which is the hallmark of every good object-oriented design.
• Design patterns have been cataloged to address various design problems, from small to large issues and architecture-level problems.
• Design patterns make good templates for your objects, allowing you to build software faster.
• Design patterns are created to fix known problems, they can be predicted before they become visible during the implementation process.

A design Pattern is a software infrastructure made up of a small number of classes that are used to solve a technical problem.

Why use a design pattern?

It provides proven development paradigms, which helps save time without having to reinvent patterns every time a problem arises.

Thanks to the design pattern, it is possible to document the solutions to be adopted based on previous practices and lessons learned.

Design patterns are used in software development for several reasons:

1. Re-usability: Design patterns provide proven solutions to common software development problems. By using them, you can leverage existing solutions and best practices, saving time and effort in designing and implementing new software systems.
2. Maintainability: Design patterns help create code that is easier to maintain and update. They provide clear structures and guidelines for organizing code, making it easier to understand, modify, and extend in the future.
3. Scalability: Design patterns promote loose coupling and separation of concerns, which helps build scalable software systems. They allow for flexibility in changing requirements and can be easily extended or adapted to accommodate future changes.
4. Collaboration: Design patterns provide a common language and vocabulary for developers to communicate and collaborate effectively. They serve as a blueprint for designing software systems, allowing developers to understand and discuss design decisions in a consistent manner.
5. Efficiency: Design patterns can help optimize code and improve performance. They provide optimized solutions to common problems, reducing redundant code and improving the overall efficiency of the software system.
6. Robustness: Design patterns help create robust and resilient software systems. They provide guidelines for error handling, exception handling, and other best practices that ensure the reliability and stability of the software system.
7. Code maintainability: Design patterns help create code that is modular and easy to understand, making it easier to maintain and debug. They promote good coding practices such as encapsulation, abstraction, and separation of concerns, which result in clean, maintainable code.

Types of Design Patterns

Design Patterns are divided into three groups depending on the nature of the design problem they intend to solve.

1. Creational Design Patterns

The basic mode of forming an object may be problematic in some projects and may lead to unnecessary complexity in some areas. Creational patterns are supposed to prevent problems from occurring and introduce more control over creating objects.

Their task is to separate the processes of creation, completion, and representation of an object in such a way that they can be decoupled from their implementing system. This provides more flexibility in deciding which objects need to be created for a given use case/ scenario.

There are five well-known design patterns possible to implement in a wide scope of programming languages:

• Abstract Factory Pattern
• Builder Pattern
• Factory Method Pattern
• Prototype Pattern
• Singleton Pattern

2. Behavioural Patterns

Behavioral patterns task is to introduce flexibility to solutions connected with inter-object communication, managing relationships, and responsibilities between objects. They are focused on allocating specific roles and duties between objects in communication.

These kinds of patterns are:

• Iterator Pattern
• Observer Pattern
• Command Pattern
• Strategy Pattern
• Template Method Pattern

3. Structural patterns

Structural design patterns are design patterns that focus on the composition of classes and objects to form larger structures while keeping the individual components of the structure flexible and interchangeable.

The most important feature of these patterns is to facilitate the operation and design of applications by finding an easy way to realize dependencies between entities. Due to these patterns, it is easier to design applications that contain independent class libraries.

The following structural patterns are one of the best well-known ones:

• Adapter Pattern
• Decorator Pattern
• Facade Pattern
• Proxy Pattern
• Composite Pattern

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, the design pattern is useful when moving from an analysis model to a development model. Design patterns have years of experience in finding solutions to frequently encountered problems in the design of object-oriented software.

They offer answers to questions that most software developers face regardless of the size or scope of the project. It promises to enhance programmer productivity with its features that promote object-oriented design while removing the onus of certain housekeeping chores from the developer.

Until next time, stay tuned and keep following Simform Engineering for more such important and exciting blogs on latest tools and technologies.