Anticlue

What are design patterns

A while ago I went over the types of design patterns, but I’m getting the impression that a lot of people are unclear on what design patterns are. Design patterns are a recipe for solving common software architectural problems. Object-oriented design has been around for a while, and as people become more accustom to using object oriented techniques they realized something. There are a couple of ways to do something, that results in a better architectural structure of the software application, then other ways. Out of these realizations arose techniques which are known as design patterns.

So people needed a way to communicate these techniques, out of this need for communication arose a common jargon. This realization is probably best illustrated with the first 23 design patterns. The communication of these techniques is important because we don't have time now-a-days to all be wheel inventors. The other thing is that after someone understands how these patterns work and can be applied it elevates their level of architectural enlightenment. In other words they become better at architecting solutions.

In order to communicate patterns, a pattern has key features.