In software development, a design pattern is a repeatable solution to a widespread problem, since it is ubiquitous to solve the same problems you have encountered before. There are two main advantages of design patterns. The first advantage is that they are proven solutions, and the second one is that they create a communication platform between developers. With these advantages, templates and specifications have been formalized over the years to create a knowledge and experience pool.
Design patterns are not finished designs that can be transformed directly into code – they are only best practices and set of approaches.
Software development is seen as a relatively young and evolving field of study; however, most of the problems solved in various circumstances are similar. For instance, it is common to create a single instance component in various software systems, such as payment systems, log managers, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, or online games. Therefore, making use of past collected knowledge helps development teams to advance rapidly.
Design patterns and corresponding business requirements could seem artificial and only software-related. However, both problems and solutions have roots in real life. For instance, the singleton pattern is proposed as a best practice for implementing a configuration manager. With the same approach in mind, the adapter pattern is proposed as a best practice to work with both versions of the APIs. As its name implies, it is a similar approach in real-life to using electrical adapters to work with the different plug and socket types in various countries. As these examples indicate, software design patterns and the ideas behind them all come from real-life experiences.
