Group Assignment 5

What is the contribution to system development by the Gang of Four? What are the components of a
standard design pattern definition? Research outside of the textbook and compare external resources
with your textbook.

Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides are the four authors who published a
book on the concept of design patterns known as Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-
Oriented Software. This has initiated all the system developers to use design patterns in systems
development. These four authors together are called as Gang of Four.

Design patterns provide solutions to common software design problems. Design patterns are a powerful
tool for software developers. However, they should not be prescriptive specifications for software. It is
more important to understand the concepts that design patterns describe, rather than memorizing their
exact classes, methods and properties. It is also important to apply patterns appropriately. Using the
incorrect pattern for a situation or applying a design pattern to a trivial solution can overcomplicate
your code and lead to maintainability issues.

Creational Patterns:
The first type of design pattern is the creational pattern. Creational patterns provide ways to
instantiate single objects or groups of related objects. There are five such patterns:
Abstract Factory. The abstract factory pattern is used to provide a client with a set of related or
dependent objects. The "family" of objects created by the factory are determined at run-time.
Builder. The builder pattern is used to create complex objects with constituent parts that must be
created in the same order or using a specific algorithm. An external class controls the construction
algorithm.
Factory Method. The factory pattern is used to replace class constructors, abstracting the process
of object generation so that the type of the object instantiated can be determined at run-time.
Prototype. The prototype pattern is used to instantiate a new object by copying all of the
properties of an existing object, creating an independent clone. This practise is particularly useful
when the construction of a new object is inefficient.
Singleton. The singleton pattern ensures that only one object of a particular class is ever created.
All further references to objects of the singleton class refer to the same underlying instance.

Structural Patterns:
The second type of design pattern is the structural pattern. Structural patterns provide a manner to
define relationships between classes or objects.
Adapter. The adapter pattern is used to provide a link between two otherwise incompatible types
by wrapping the "adaptee" with a class that supports the interface required by the client.
Bridge. The bridge pattern is used to separate the abstract elements of a class from the
implementation details, providing the means to replace the implementation details without
modifying the abstraction.
Composite. The composite pattern is used to create hierarchical, recursive tree structures of
related objects where any element of the structure may be accessed and utilized in a standard
manner.
Decorator. The decorator pattern is used to extend or alter the functionality of objects at run-time
by wrapping them in an object of a decorator class. This provides a flexible alternative to
using inheritance to modify behavior.
Facade. The facade pattern is used to define a simplified interface to a more complex subsystem.
Flyweight. The flyweight pattern is used to reduce the memory and resource usage for complex
models containing many hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of similar objects.
Proxy. The proxy pattern is used to provide a surrogate or placeholder object, which references an
underlying object. The proxy provides the same public interface as the underlying subject class,
adding a level of indirection by accepting requests from a client object and passing these to the
real subject object as necessary.
 Group Assignment 5

Behavioral Patterns:
The final type of design pattern is the behavioral pattern. Behavioral patterns define manners of
communication between classes and objects.
Chain of Responsibility. The chain of responsibility pattern is used to process varied requests,
each of which may be dealt with by a different handler.
Command. The command pattern is used to express a request, including the call to be made and
all its required parameters, in a command object. The command may then be executed
immediately or held for later use.
Interpreter. The interpreter pattern is used to define the grammar for instructions that form part of
a language or notation, whilst allowing the grammar to be easily extended.
Iterator. The iterator pattern is used to provide a standard interface for traversing a collection of
items in an aggregate object without the need to understand its underlying structure.
Mediator. The mediator pattern is used to reduce coupling between classes that communicate with
each other. Instead of classes communicating directly, and thus requiring knowledge of their
implementation, the classes send messages via a mediator object.
Memento. The memento pattern is used to capture the current state of an object and store it in
such a manner that it can be restored later without breaking the rules of encapsulation.
Observer. The observer pattern is used to allow an object to publish changes to its state. Other
objects subscribe to be immediately notified of any changes.
State. The state pattern is used to alter the behavior of an object as its internal state changes. The
pattern allows the class for an object to apparently change at run-time.
Strategy. The strategy pattern is used to create an interchangeable family of algorithms from
which the required process is chosen at run-time.
Template Method. The template method pattern is used to define the basic steps of an algorithm
and allow the implementation of the individual steps to be changed.
Visitor. The visitor pattern is used to separate a relatively complex set of structured data classes
from the functionality that may be performed upon the data that they hold.

Reference:
1. http://www.blackwasp.co.uk/gofpatterns.aspx
2. https://springframework.guru/gang-of-four-design-patterns/
3. https://dzone.com/articles/gang-four-patterns-everyday