What Are Design Patterns? Why Use Them?

Most problems we encounter as programmers have been handled time and again by others in our community. Design patterns can provide us with the means to mine that wisdom. Once a pattern becomes a common currency, it enriches our language, making it easy to share design ideas and their consequences. Design patterns simply distill common problems, define tested solutions, and describe likely outcomes. Many books and articles focus on the details of computer languages, such as the available functions, classes and methods, and so on. Pattern catalogs concentrate instead on how you can move on from these basics (the “what”) to an understanding of the problems and potential solutions in your projects (the “why” and “how”). In this chapter, I introduce you to design patterns and look at some of the reasons for their popularity.