Design Patterns For Humans

🎉 Ultra-simplified explanation to design patterns! 🎉

A topic that can easily make anyone's mind wobble. Here I try to make them stick in to your mind (and maybe mine) by explaining them in the simplest way possible.
Based on "Design patterns for humans"

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🚀 Introduction

Design patterns are solutions to recurring problems guidelines on how to tackle certain problems. They are not classes, packages or libraries that you can plug into your application and wait for the magic to happen. These are, rather, guidelines on how to tackle certain problems in certain situations.

Design patterns solutions to recurring problems guidelines on how to tackle certain problems

Wikipedia describes them as

In software engineering, a software design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into source or machine code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations.

⚠️ Be Careful

Design patterns are not a silver bullet to all your problems.
Do not try to force them bad things are supposed to happen, if done so. Keep in mind that design patterns are solutions to problems, not solutions finding problems so don't overthink.
If used in a correct place in a correct manner, they can prove to be a savior or else they can result in a horrible mess of a code.

🐢 Before you start

All design patterns have been implemented in ES6, the new version of javascript.
Since javascript does not have any implementation of interfaces, the examples here use implied interfaces, which means that as long as a class has attributes and methods that a particular interface is supposed to have, it is considered to implement that interface. To make it easier to tell the interface we are using, its information can be found in the comments of every example.

Creational Design Patterns

In plain words

Creational patterns are focused towards how to instantiate an object or group of related objects.

Wikipedia says

In software engineering, creational design patterns are design patterns that deal with object creation mechanisms, trying to create objects in a manner suitable to the situation. The basic form of object creation could result in design problems or added complexity to the design. Creational design patterns solve this problem by somehow controlling this object creation.

Simple Factory
Factory Method
Abstract Factory
Builder
Prototype
Singleton

🏠 Simple Factory

Real world example

Consider, you are building a house and you need doors. It would be a mess if every time you need a door, you put on your carpenter clothes and start making a door in your house. Instead you get it made from a factory.

In plain words

Simple factory simply generates an instance for client without exposing any instantiation logic to the client

Wikipedia says

In object-oriented programming (OOP), a factory is an object for creating other objects – formally a factory is a function or method that returns objects of a varying prototype or class from some method call, which is assumed to be "new".

Programmatic Example

First of all we have a door interface and the implementation

/*
Door

getWidth()
getHeight()

*/

class WoodenDoor {
  constructor(width, height){
    this.width = width
    this.height = height
  }

  getWidth(){
    return this.width
  }

  getHeight(){
    return this.height
  }
}

Then we have our door factory that makes the door and returns it

const DoorFactory = {
  makeDoor : (width, height) => new WoodenDoor(width, height)
}

And then it can be used as

const door = DoorFactory.makeDoor(100, 200)
console.log('Width:', door.getWidth())
console.log('Height:', door.getHeight())

When to Use?

When creating an object is not just a few assignments and involves some logic, it makes sense to put it in a dedicated factory instead of repeating the same code everywhere.

🏭 Factory Method

Real world example

Consider the case of a hiring manager. It is impossible for one person to interview for each of the positions. Based on the job opening, she has to decide and delegate the interview steps to different people.

In plain words

It provides a way to delegate the instantiation logic to child classes.

Wikipedia says

In class-based programming, the factory method pattern is a creational pattern that uses factory methods to deal with the problem of creating objects without having to specify the exact class of the object that will be created. This is done by creating objects by calling a factory method—either specified in an interface and implemented by child classes, or implemented in a base class and optionally overridden by derived classes—rather than by calling a constructor.

Programmatic Example

Taking our hiring manager example above. First of all we have an interviewer interface and some implementations for it

/*
Interviewer interface

askQuestions()
*/

class Developer {
  askQuestions() {
    console.log('Asking about design patterns!')
  }
}

class CommunityExecutive {
  askQuestions() {
    console.log('Asking about community building')
  }
}

Now let us create our HiringManager

class HiringManager {
        
    takeInterview() {
        const interviewer = this.makeInterviewer()
        interviewer.askQuestions()
    }
}

Now any child can extend it and provide the required interviewer

class DevelopmentManager extends HiringManager {
    makeInterviewer() {
        return new Developer()
    }
}

class MarketingManager extends HiringManager {
    makeInterviewer() {
        return new CommunityExecutive()
    }
}

and then it can be used as

const devManager = new DevelopmentManager()
devManager.takeInterview() // Output: Asking about design patterns

const marketingManager = new MarketingManager()
marketingManager.takeInterview() // Output: Asking about community building.

When to use?

Useful when there is some generic processing in a class but the required sub-class is dynamically decided at runtime. Or putting it in other words, when the client doesn't know what exact sub-class it might need.

🔨 Abstract Factory

Real world example

Extending our door example from Simple Factory. Based on your needs you might get a wooden door from a wooden door shop, iron door from an iron shop or a PVC door from the relevant shop. Plus you might need a guy with different kind of specialities to fit the door, for example a carpenter for wooden door, welder for iron door etc. As you can see there is a dependency between the doors now, wooden door needs carpenter, iron door needs a welder etc.

In plain words

A factory of factories is a factory that groups the individual but related/dependent factories together without specifying their concrete classes.

Wikipedia says

The abstract factory pattern provides a way to encapsulate a group of individual factories that have a common theme without specifying their concrete classes

Programmatic Example

Translating the door example above. First of all we have our Door interface and some implementation for it

/*
Door interface :

getDescription()
*/

class WoodenDoor {
    getDescription() {
        console.log('I am a wooden door')
    }
}

class IronDoor {
    getDescription() {
        console.log('I am an iron door')
    }
}

Then we have some fitting experts for each door type

/*
DoorFittingExpert interface :

getDescription()
*/

class Welder {
    getDescription() {
        console.log('I can only fit iron doors')
    }
}

class Carpenter {
    getDescription() {
        console.log('I can only fit wooden doors')
    }
}

Now we have our abstract factory that would let us make family of related objects i.e. wooden door factory would create a wooden door and wooden door fitting expert and iron door factory would create an iron door and iron door fitting expert

/*
DoorFactory interface :

makeDoor()
makeFittingExpert()
*/

// Wooden factory to return carpenter and wooden door
class WoodenDoorFactory {
    makeDoor(){
        return new WoodenDoor()
    }

    makeFittingExpert() {
        return new Carpenter()
    }
}

// Iron door factory to get iron door and the relevant fitting expert
class IronDoorFactory {
    makeDoor(){
        return new IronDoor()
    }

    makeFittingExpert() {
        return new Welder()
    }
}

And then it can be used as

woodenFactory = new WoodenDoorFactory()

door = woodenFactory.makeDoor()
expert = woodenFactory.makeFittingExpert()

door.getDescription()  // Output: I am a wooden door
expert.getDescription() // Output: I can only fit wooden doors

// Same for Iron Factory
ironFactory = new IronDoorFactory()

door = ironFactory.makeDoor()
expert = ironFactory.makeFittingExpert()

door.getDescription()  // Output: I am an iron door
expert.getDescription() // Output: I can only fit iron doors

As you can see the wooden door factory has encapsulated the carpenter and the wooden door also iron door factory has encapsulated the iron door and welder. And thus it had helped us make sure that for each of the created door, we do not get a wrong fitting expert.

When to use?

When there are interrelated dependencies with not-that-simple creation logic involved

👷 Builder

Real world example

Imagine you are at Hardee's and you order a specific deal, lets say, "Big Hardee" and they hand it over to you without any questions this is the example of simple factory. But there are cases when the creation logic might involve more steps. For example you want a customized Subway deal, you have several options in how your burger is made e.g what bread do you want? what types of sauces would you like? What cheese would you want? etc. In such cases builder pattern comes to the rescue.

In plain words

Allows you to create different flavors of an object while avoiding constructor pollution. Useful when there could be several flavors of an object. Or when there are a lot of steps involved in creation of an object.

Wikipedia says

The builder pattern is an object creation software design pattern with the intentions of finding a solution to the telescoping constructor anti-pattern.

Having said that let me add a bit about what telescoping constructor anti-pattern is. At one point or the other we have all seen a constructor like below:

constructor(size, cheese = true, pepperoni = true, tomato = false, lettuce = true) {
    // ... 
}

As you can see the number of constructor parameters can quickly get out of hand and it might become difficult to understand the arrangement of parameters. Plus this parameter list could keep on growing if you would want to add more options in future. This is called telescoping constructor anti-pattern.

Programmatic Example

The sane alternative is to use the builder pattern. First of all we have our burger that we want to make

class Burger {
    constructor(builder) {
        this.size = builder.size
        this.cheeze = builder.cheeze || false
        this.pepperoni = builder.pepperoni || false
        this.lettuce = builder.lettuce || false
        this.tomato = builder.tomato || false
    }
}

And then we have the builder

class BurgerBuilder {

    constructor(size) {
        this.size = size
    }

    addPepperoni() {
        this.pepperoni = true
        return this
    }

    addLettuce() {
        this.lettuce = true
        return this
    }

    addCheeze() {
        this.cheeze = true
        return this
    }

    addTomato() {
        this.tomato = true
        return this
    }

    build() {
        return new Burger(this)
    }
}

And then it can be used as:

const burger = (new BurgerBuilder(14))
    .addPepperoni()
    .addLettuce()
    .addTomato()
    .build()

Javascript specific tip : When you find that the number of arguments to a function or method are too many (normally any more than 2 arguments is considered too much), use a single object argument instead of multiple arguments. This serves two purposes :

It makes your code look less cluttered, since there is only one argument.
You don't have to worry about the order of arguments since arguments are now passed as named properties of the object.

For example :

const burger = new Burger({
    size : 14,
    pepperoni : true,
    cheeze : false,
    lettuce : true,
    tomato : true
})

instead of :

const burger = new Burger(14, true, false, true, true)

When to use?

When there could be several flavors of an object and to avoid the constructor telescoping. The key difference from the factory pattern is that factory pattern is to be used when the creation is a one step process while builder pattern is to be used when the creation is a multi step process.

🐑 Prototype

Real world example

Remember dolly? The sheep that was cloned! Lets not get into the details but the key point here is that it is all about cloning

In plain words

Create object based on an existing object through cloning.

Wikipedia says

The prototype pattern is a creational design pattern in software development. It is used when the type of objects to create is determined by a prototypical instance, which is cloned to produce new objects.

In short, it allows you to create a copy of an existing object and modify it to your needs, instead of going through the trouble of creating an object from scratch and setting it up.

Programmatic Example

First of all we have our Sheep that we want to clone

class Sheep {
    constructor(name, category = "Mountain Sheep") {
        this.name = name;
        this.category = category;
    }

    setName(name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    getName() {
        console.log(this.name);
    }

    setCategory(category) {
        this.category = category;
    }

    getCategory() {
        console.log(this.category);
    }
}

And then we have a SheepPrototype object that clones objects given a prototype object. Its constructor function accepts a prototype of type Sheep

class SheepPrototype {
    constructor(proto) {
        this.proto = proto;
    }

    clone() {
        return new Sheep(this.proto.name, this.proto.category);
    }
}

Then it can be cloned like below

const originalSheep = new Sheep("Jolly");
originalSheep.getName(); // Jolly
originalSheep.getCategory(); // Mountain Sheep

// Clone and modify what is required
const prototype = new SheepPrototype(originalSheep);
const clonedSheep = prototype.clone();
clonedSheep.setName("Dolly");
clonedSheep.getName(); // Dolly
clonedSheep.getCategory(); // Mountain sheep

This was the classical implementation of the Prototype pattern, but JavaScript can do this far more effectively using its built-in prototype facility.

When to use?

When an object is required that is similar to existing object or when the creation would be expensive as compared to cloning.

💍 Singleton

Real world example

There can only be one president of a country at a time. The same president has to be brought to action, whenever duty calls. President here is singleton.

In plain words

Ensures that only one object of a particular class is ever created.

Wikipedia says

In software engineering, the singleton pattern is a software design pattern that restricts the instantiation of a class to one object. This is useful when exactly one object is needed to coordinate actions across the system.

Singleton pattern is actually considered an anti-pattern and overuse of it should be avoided. It is not necessarily bad and could have some valid use-cases but should be used with caution because it introduces a global state in your application and change to it in one place could affect in the other areas and it could become pretty difficult to debug. The other bad thing about them is it makes your code tightly coupled plus it mocking the singleton could be difficult.

Programmatic Example

In javascript, singletons can be implemented using the module pattern. Private variables and functions are hidden in a function closure, and public methods are selectively exposed.

const president = (function(){
    const presidentsPrivateInformation = 'Super private'

    const name = 'Turd Sandwich'

    const getName = () => name

    return {
        getName
    }
}())

Here, presidentsPrivateInformation and name are kept private. However, name can be accessed with the exposed president.getName method.

president.getName() // Outputs 'Turd Sandwich'
president.name // Outputs undefined
president.presidentsPrivateInformation // Outputs undefined

Structural Design Patterns

In plain words

Structural patterns are mostly concerned with object composition or in other words how the entities can use each other. Or yet another explanation would be, they help in answering "How to build a software component?"

Wikipedia says

In software engineering, structural design patterns are design patterns that ease the design by identifying a simple way to realize relationships between entities.