How to learn the practical uses of design patterns

Question

I use OOP programming with inheritance, but I've not yet used interfaces.I want to learn how to use design patterns, but I'm finding them very difficult to learn. Is there is any way to learn design patterns easily?

I searched quite a bit, but I was not able to find useful information.

Answer 1

There is no replacement or short cut to what just Meagar said in one of the earlier post. Following may help but essentially to paraphrase Meagar - the only way to learn swimming is by diving in the water and sink a few times!

Following are some of the links. JUnit Cookbook provides brilliant example of quite a few patterns - really worth checking.

1. JUnit Cook's Tour
2. Vince Huton's DP
3. Design PAtterns

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Develop software. Until you're writing real software with a real purpose, you won't find a real reason to use any design pattern. You can read and do exercises, but nothing will prepare you the way encountering and solving a real problem will.

Find a problem in your daily workflow and write software to automate it, or do what many people in our field did and write a crummy video game. The only way to learn how to build software well is to build lots of software.

Answer 3

you would find various links available on google if you search with "Design patterns".

When I started on design patterns I like this link very much.

http://www.dofactory.com/Patterns/Patterns.aspx

I hope you would also get benefit from this..

Answer 4

A design pattern is just that: A pattern used to design software.

Many clever programmers over the last six decades have discovered themselves writing code for various different projects using the same basic structures.

A simple one is the factory method, instead of writing:

$a = new D();
$a->foo = 'bar';
$a->baz = 'buzz';

$b = new D();
$b->foo = 'bar';
$b->baz = 'buzz';

$c = new D();
...

It is much simpler to have a function that does that all for you:

function makeD()
{
  $temp = new D();
  $temp->foo = 'bar';
  $temp->baz = 'buzz';
  return $temp;
}

and then call it a few times:

$a = makeD();
$b = makeD();
$c = makeD();

This particular pattern is the builder pattern. You can search them on wikipedia, or read about them in a number of books, but don't confuse them for being a panacea.

Design patterns are only patterns, if you find yourself saying "Man, I really could use a simplified way of doing x" then you can probably find a design pattern to simplify the code. Once you've used a few design patterns, they'll start to be part of your toolbox, and you'll be able to look at a problem and tell "I should use an [insert design pattern here]", but if you don't use a formal design pattern, that's ok too.

I would say that interfaces are mostly unrelated to design patterns, although some design patterns use interfaces as part of the pattern.