Difference Between Bridge Pattern and Adapter Pattern

The Bridge Pattern and the Adapter Pattern are structural design patterns in object-oriented software development that primarily target the flexibility and reusability of a design. These two patterns have different roles and are used in different scenarios to solve specific design issues.

What is the Bridge Pattern?

The Bridge Pattern is one of the structural design patterns that efficiently decouple an abstraction from its implementation so that the two vary independently.

For example:

You have an abstraction as a remote control and the implementations can be TVs or radios.

Unlike having the remote control fixed to workable only with a specific type of device, the Bridge Pattern enables the construction of a system where the remote control will be able to work on any device if you plug in certain implementations. Thus, it will be possible to change or add new devices without affecting the remote control, and modify the functions of the remote control without affecting the devices.

What is the Adapter Pattern?

The Adapter Pattern is a structural design pattern deals with the problem of incompatible interfaces to objects. Suppose that you have a phone charger that doesn’t fit the charging socket of your phone. In their place, an adapter is a small device that at one side connects to the wall socket appropriately for your phone while the other side plugs into a charger.

• In this manner, the adapter changes the logical connection interface of the plug so that the charger and the phone can engage and operate compatibly.
• In software development, one does the same thing through the use of the Adapter Pattern by establishing an intermediate level that converts the appearance of one class into the expected appearance of another.

Bridge Pattern vs. Adapter Pattern

Here’s a detailed comparison between the Bridge Pattern and the Adapter Pattern in a tabular format:

Advantages and Disadvantages of Bridge Pattern

Advantages

• Decoupling Interface and Implementation: Enables abstraction and implementation to be incremental and not-prereqs which means that they can be developed over time without necessarily overtaking one another.
• Increased Flexibility: Permits a dynamic change of implementation during runtime of the program.
• Enhanced Scalability: Incorporates easy methods of integrating new abstractions and implementations to maintain a sound design.
• Improved Maintainability: Modifications to the implementation do not cascade up to the client code, improving maintainability.

Disadvantages

• Complexity: Adds more abstraction levels which make the design process longer and much more complex.
• Overhead: May result from performance overhead as implementors may choose to add an additional layer.
• Initial Setup: Cannot be executed casually; there is a need to set abstraction and implementation levels appropriately and then correctly disconnect them.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Adapter Pattern:

Advantages

• Reusability: Enables current classes to be reused in the system irrespective of the fact that their interfaces are different.
• Ease of Integration: Helps to incorporate third party libraries or legacy application easily in new application.
• Minimal Changes: It takes very little developers’ time to implement and addresses interface incompatible problems on the fast side.

Disadvantages

• Increased Code Complexity: Introduces additional classes (adapters) to the code which may complicate it.
• Performance Overhead: May lead to performance overhead since the application will be using an extra level of abstraction.
• Limited Scope: It can only work on some interfaces, and thus can only be applied specifically to those situations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Bridge Pattern is suitable for decoupling the abstractions from the implementing objects to enhance the potential both of them, thus recommended for the complex and large systems. For its part, the Adapter Pattern is aimed at cleaning up disparate interfaces where interfacing existing classes or third-party libraries into new applications is the overall goal with as little alteration as possible.