GOF Design Patterns and OOP Notes
A pattern addresses a recurring design problem that arises
in specific design situations and presents a solution to it” (Buschmann, et. al.
1996)
Object Oriented Programming Best Practices
| Creational Design Patterns |
| Factory Method Methods, which create an instance of another class is known as a Factory Method. A class (Factory Class) can contain one or more Factory Methods. Factory Methods can be static or non-static. We can create a concrete Factory class and its sub-classes can create appropriate instances. The Factory Method is only responsible for creating objects. Once they create & return an object, they don’t have any control over object’s life time. You should consider using a Factory pattern to reduce coupling and to create multiple objects at run time based on some inputs or conditions. Unlike constructors, factory methods are not required to create a new object each time they are invoked. Factory methods can encapsulate the logic required to return a singleton instance of the class requested, or they can return an instance of the requested class from a pool of instances. The base Factory class is abstract.The Concrete classes override getMyClass() method to return a particular type of object.  Examples of factory method in JDK: - public static Runtime getRuntime() of Runtime class. - createStatement() of Connection class (java.sql) |
| Abstract Factory The Abstract Factory Method (AFM) is one level abstraction higher than the Factory Method pattern. AFM is useful when we want to return one of several related classes of objects, each of which can return several different objects on request. AFM can provide more than of type of objects.An abstract factory provides an interface for creating families of related objects without specifying their concrete classes. Abstract Factory provide a single interface to Clients to use, when they need to create a family of related objects. The Abstract factory publishes an interface for creating abstract products. But the concrete subclasses actually provide the concrete products.Accessing an abstract factory is normally done through a static method on the Abstract Factory class.Whenever we need new kind of products to be created, we just want to make new concrete factory classes. To change a complete family of products is easy. Just change the factory, the client uses. AFM helps to increase the overall flexibility of an application. This flexibility manifests itself both during design & run time. During design time, you do not have to predict all future uses for an application. Instead, you create the generic frameworks and then develop implementations independently from the rest of the application. At run time, the application can easily integrate new features and resources. Use AFM when you want your system to be independent from the products it uses. This involves being independent from the creation, composition, and representation of the products. You want the ability to interchange the type of family of products the system uses. Whenever the application wants to deal multiple Operating Systems, Multiple Databases, Multiple Persistent Mechanisms, multiple document types, multiple image types etc. Used in JDBC, Java Mail, Swing pluggable L&F, AWT toolkit, DAO. |
| Builder Builder patterns allows a client to construct a complex object by specifying only its type & context. The Client is totally shielded from the details of actual construction process. In builder pattern, the client is given the choice to create the type of object that he/she wants. Use builder pattern when The algorithm for creating a complex object should be independent of the parts that make up the object and how they're assembled or when a program is required to produce multiple external representation of the same data. Builder pattern allows us to vary a Product’s internal representation. |
| Prototype The Prototype pattern is used when creating an instance of a class is very time-consuming or complex in some way. In that case, instead of creating more instances from scratch, its better to make copies of the available instance and modifying them as per requirement. The most important requirement for objects to be used as Prototype is that they have a method, typically called clone(), which returns a new object (copy of the original object). In shallow copy the internal object is not cloned whereas in deep copy even the internal object which is being composed, is also cloned. By default clone method returns a shallow copy. We have to override ‘clone()’ method, if we are interested in deep cloning. Only instances of those classes, which implements ‘cloneable’ interface can be cloned. The ‘clone()’ method always returns an object of type ‘Object’. So we must cast it to the actual type of object. Prototype pattern is useful for dynamically adding & removing objects at run-time. It reduces the need of sub classing and helps to reduce the number of classes. The Prototype pattern is used when creating an instance of a class is very time-consuming or complex in some way like getting some data from Database or across the network. |
| Singleton The Singleton pattern ensures that a class has only one instance. Provides a global point of access to that instance.  Constructor is ‘PRIVATE’. This ensures that no other code in your application will be able to create an instance of this class, by using the constructor directly. Using a static method, which returns an object. Static variable, used for holding the created instance. If the instance is already there, the static method do not create a second one, instead returns the already created one.When multiple threads are introduced, you must protect the getInstance() method through synchronization. If the getInstance() method is not protected against synchronization, it is possible to return two different instances of the Singleton object. Refer to Double Checked Lock (DCL) programming pattern and ThreadLocal implementation for better singleton implementation in a multithreaded environment. |
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Structural Design Patterns |
| The Adapter Pattern The Adapter pattern is used to convert the programming interface of one class into that of another. We use adapters whenever we want unrelated classes to work together in a single program. The concept of an adapter is thus pretty simple; we write a class that has the desired interface and then make it communicate with the class that has a different interface. There are two ways to do this: by inheritance, and by object composition. In the first case, we derive a new class from the nonconforming one and add the methods we need to make the new derived class match the desired interface. The other way is to include the original class inside the new one and create the methods to translate calls within the new class. These two approaches, termed class adapters and object adapters are both fairly easy to implement in Java. |
| The Bridge Pattern At first sight, the Bridge pattern looks much like the Adapter pattern, in that a class is used to convert one kind of interface to another. However, the intent of the Adapter pattern is to make one or more classes’ interfaces look the same as that of a particular class. The Bridge pattern is designed to separate a class’s interface from its implementation, so that you can vary or replace the implementation without changing the client code. |
| The Composite Pattern Frequently programmers develop systems in which a component may be an individual object or it may represent a collection of objects. The Composite pattern is designed to accommodate both cases. You can use the Composite to build part-whole hierarchies or to construct data representations of trees. In summary, a composite is a collection of objects, any one of which may be either a composite, or just a primitive object. In tree nomenclature, some objects may be nodes with additional branches and some may be leaves. |
| The Façade Pattern Frequently, as your programs evolve and develop, they grow in complexity. In fact,for all the excitement about using design patterns, these patterns sometimes generate so many classes that it is difficult to understand the program’s flow. Furthermore, there may be a number of complicated subsystems, each of which has its own complex interface.The Façade pattern allows you to simplify this complexity by providing a simplified interface to these subsystems. This simplification may in some cases reduce the flexibility of the underlying classes, but usually provides all the function needed for all but the most sophisticated users. These users can still, of course, access the underlying classes and methods. |
| The Proxy Pattern The Proxy pattern is used when you need to represent an object that is complex or time consuming to create, by a simpler one. If creating an object is expensive in time or computer resources, Proxy allows you to postpone this creation until you need the actual object. A Proxy usually has the same methods as the object it represents, and once the object is loaded, it passes on the method calls from the Proxy to the actual object. There are several cases where a Proxy can be useful: 1. If an object, such as a large image, takes a long time to load. 2. If the object is on a remote machine and loading it over the network may be slow, especially during peak network load periods. 3. If the object has limited access rights, the proxy can validate the accesspermissions for that user. |
| The Decorator pattern, a class that surrounds a given class, adds new capabilities to it, and passes all the unchanged methods to the underlying class. |
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Behavioral Design Patterns |
| The Template Method Whenever you write a parent class where you leave one or more of the methods to be implemented by derived classes, you are in essence using the Template pattern. The Template pattern formalizes the idea of defining an algorithm in a class, but leaving some of the details to be implemented in subclasses. In other words, if your base class is an abstract class, as often happens in these design patterns, you are using a simple form of the Template pattern. |
| The Chain of Responsibility The Chain of Responsibility pattern allows a number of classes to attempt to handle a request, without any of them knowing about the capabilities of the other classes. It provides a loose coupling between these classes; the only common link is the request that is passed between them. The request is passed along until one of the classes can handle it. |
| The Command Pattern The Chain of Responsibility forwards requests along a chain of classes, but the Command pattern forwards a request only to a specific object. It encloses a request for a specific action inside an object and gives it a known public interface. It lets you give the client the ability to make requests without knowing anything about the actual action that will be performed, and allows you to change that action without affecting the client program in any way. |
| The Iterator Pattern The Iterator is one of the simplest and most frequently used of the design patterns. The Iterator pattern allows you to move through a list or collection of data using a standard interface without having to know the details of the internal representations of that data. In addition you can also define special iterators that perform some special processing and return only specified elements of the data collection. |
| The Visitor Pattern The Visitor pattern turns the tables on our object-oriented model and creates an external class to act on data in other classes. This is useful when you have a polymorphic operation that cannot reside in the class hierarchy for some reason.. For example, the operation wasn’t considered when the hierarchy was designed, or because it would clutter the interface of the classes unnecessarily. |
| The Mediator Pattern When a program is made up of a number of classes, the logic and computation is divided logically among these classes. However, as more of these isolated classes are developed in a program, the problem of communication between these classes become more complex. The more each class needs to know about the methods of another class, the more tangled the class structure can become. This makes the program harder to read and harder to maintain. Further,it can become difficult to change the program, since any change may affect code in several other classes. The Mediator pattern addresses this problem by promoting looser coupling between these classes. Mediators accomplish this by being the only class that has detailed knowledge of the methods of other classes. Classes send inform the mediator when changes occur and the Mediator passes them on to any other classes that need to be informed. |
| The State Pattern The State pattern is used when you want to have an object represent the state of your application, and switch application states by switching objects. For example, you could have an enclosing class switch between a number of related contained classes, and pass method calls on to the current contained class. Design Patterns suggests that the State pattern switches between internal classes in such a way that the enclosing object appears to change its class. In Java, at least, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but the actual purpose to which the classes are put can change significantly. Many programmers have had the experience of creating a class that performs slightly different computations or displays different information based on the arguments passed into the class. This frequently leads to some sort of switch or if-else statements inside the class that determine which behavior to carry out. It is this inelegance that the State pattern seeks to replace. |
| The Strategy Pattern The Strategy pattern is much like the State pattern in outline, but a little different in intent. The Strategy pattern consists of a number of related algorithms encapsulated in a driver class called the Context. Your client program can select one of these differing algorithms or in some cases the Context might select the best one for you. The intent is to make these algorithms interchangeable and provide a way to choose the most appropriate one. The difference between State and Strategy is that the user generally chooses which of several strategies to apply and that only one strategy at a time is likely to be instantiated and active within the Context class. By contrast, as we have seen, it is possible that all of the different States will be active at once and switching may occur frequently between them. In addition, Strategy encapsulates several algorithms that do more or less the same thing, while State encapsulates related classes that each do something somewhat different. Finally, the concept of transition between different states is completely missing in the Strategy pattern. |
| The Observer Pattern The Observer pattern assumes that the object containing the data is separate from the objects that display the data, and that these display objects observe changes in that data. When we implement the Observer pattern, we usually refer to the data as the Subject and each of the displays as Observers. Each of these observers registers its interest in the data by calling a public method in the Subject. Then, each observer has a known interface that the subject calls when the data change. |
| Interface with Interfaces Use interfaces as the glue throughout your code instead of classes: define interfaces to describe the exterior of objects (i.e. their Type) and type all variables, parameters, and return values to interfaces. The most important reason to do this is that interfaces focus on the client’s needs: interfaces define what functionality a client will receive from an Object without coupling the client to the Object’s implementation. This is one of the core concepts to OO. |
| Create Different Interfaces for Different Types of Clients Provide different interfaces to support different types of clients and to prevent exposing responsibilities to clients who should not see it. Provides a more understandable system for a particular client’s perspective and makes maintenance impacts more visible. |
| Use Interfaces over Abstract Classes If you can conceive of someone else implementing a class's functionality differently, define an interface, not an abstract class. Generally, use abstract classes only when they are ``partially abstract''; i.e., they implement some functionality that must be shared across all subclasses. Interfaces are more flexible than abstract classes. They support multiple inheritance and can be used as `mixins' in otherwise unrelated classes. |
| Rarely declare a class final Declare a class as final only if it is a subclass or implementation of a class or interface declaring all of its non-implementation-specific methods. (And similarly for final methods). Making a class final means that no one ever has a chance to reimplement functionality. Defining it instead to be a subclass of a base that is not final means that someone at least gets a chance to subclass the base with an alternate implementation. Which will essentially always happen in the long run. |
| Minimize statics (except for static final constants). Static variables act like globals in non-OO languages. They make methods more context-dependent, hide possible side-effects, sometimes present synchronized access problems. and are the source of fragile, non-extensible constructions. Also, neither static variables nor methods are overridable in any useful sense in subclasses. |
| Use Factories for Creating Objects Use Factories and Factory methods for "public" object construction: have an object be responsible for construction instead of having clients directly call "new AClass()". The reason to use factory creation methods instead of straight constructors is because they: Allow more flexibility in "creating" a new object: the implementation can just reuse an existing object if the semantics make sense. Can have better names: "newTimeNow()" and "newTimeFromSeconds(...)" instead of "new Time()" and "new Time(...)" Provide better separation between interface and implementation: we can document the factory method in an interface. Naturally flow into more sophisticated factory designs.The implementation can take advantage of inheritance since it is a "normal" object method. |
| Never declare instance variables as public. The standard OO reasons. Making variables public gives up control over internal class structure. Also, methods cannot assume that variables have valid values. |
| All data should be hidden within its class. |
| Keep things as “private as possible.” Once you publicize an aspect of your library (a method, a class, a field), you can never take it out. If you do, you’ll wreck somebody’s existing code, forcing them to rewrite and redesign. If you publicize only what you must, you can change everything else with impunity, and since designs tend to evolve this is an important freedom. In this way, implementation changes will have minimal impact on derived classes. Privacy is especially important when dealing with multithreading—only private fields can be protected against un-synchronized use. |
| Users of a class must be dependent on its public interface, but a class should not be dependent on its users. |
| Do not change the state of an object without going through its public interface. |
| Minimize the number of messages in the protocol of a class. |
| Do not clutter the public interface of a class with things that users of that class are not able to use or are not interested in using. |
| Keep related data and behavior in one place. Spin off non-related information into another class. |
| Distribute system intelligence horizontally as uniformly as possible, i.e. the top level classes in a design should share the work uniformly. |
| Do not create god classes/objects in your system. Be very suspicious of an abstraction whose name contains Driver, Manager, System, or Subsystem. |
| In applications which consist of an object-oriented model interacting with a user interface, the model should never be dependent on the interface. The interface should be dependent on the model. |
| Inheritance should only be used to model a specialization hierarchy. |
| All data in a base class should be private, i.e. do not use protected data. |
| Theoretically, inheritance hierarchies should be deep, i.e. the deeper the better. Pragmatically, inheritance hierarchies should be no deeper than an average person can keep in their short term memory. A popular value for this depth is six. |
| All abstract classes must be base classes. All base classes should be abstract classes. |
| Factor the commonality of data, behavior, and/or interface as high as possible in the inheritance hierarchy. |
| If two or more classes only share common data (no common behavior) then that common data should be placed in a class which will be contained by each sharing class. |
| If two or more classes have common data and behavior (i.e. methods) then those classes should each inherit from a common base class which captures those data and methods. |
| If two or more classes only share common interface (i.e. messages, not methods) then they should inherit from a common base class only if they will be used polymorphically. |
| If you have an example of multiple inheritance in your design, assume you have made a mistake and prove otherwise. |
| Whenever there is inheritance in an object-oriented design ask yourself two questions: 1) Am I a special type of the thing I'm inheriting from? and 2) Is the thing I'm inheriting from part of me? |
| Whenever you have found a multiple inheritance relationship in a object-oriented design be sure that no base class is actually a derived class of another base class, i.e. accidental multiple inheritance. |
| What are some alternatives to inheritance? Delegation is an alternative to inheritance. Delegation means that you include an instance of another class as an instance variable, and forward messages to the instance. It is often safer than inheritance because it forces you to think about each message you forward, because the instance is of a known class, rather than a new class, and because it doesn't force you to accept all the methods of the super class: you can provide only the methods that really make sense. On the other hand, it makes you write more code, and it is harder to re-use (because it is not a subclass). |
| The Utility Class idiom A utility class contains only public static methods and is not meant to be instantiated. Utility classes are easily abused and can lead to procedural programming. However, Bloch pointed out two valid uses of this idiom. You should use a utility class to act on collections of primitives and collections of objects that implement interfaces. java.util.Collections serves as an example of a properly designed utility class. |
| Watch for long method definitions. Methods should be brief, functional units that describe and implement a discrete part of a class interface. A method that is long and complicated is difficult and expensive to maintain, and is probably trying to do too much all by itself. If you see such a method, it indicates that, at the least, it should be broken up into multiple methods. It may also suggest the creation of a new class. Small methods will also foster reuse within your class. (Sometimes methods must be large, but they should still do just one thing.) |
| Return Immutables From Accessor Methods Many accessor methods need to return values which are references to objects which represent a part of the state of the called object; directly returning the state in this form will expose the internals of the called object, and the caller will have the ability to modify that state unpredictably. |
| Copy Mutable Parameters If an object has to use a mutable object as a ValueObject, operations on the mutable value can change the object's internal state without its knowledge and can cause it's state to become inconsistent. Therefore: an object that holds mutable objects as state must ReturnNewObjectsFromAccessorMethods. Additionally, it must make private copies of mutable objects that are passed to it and that it needs to store internally. (by making use of use cloning) |
| Object Pooling Don't do it. Outside of some cases where you are actually pooling the resource held by the object and not the object itself (e.g. thread pools, database connections, huge bitmaps, etc.), object pooling is not worth doing anymore. Object allocation is now so fast that the necessary synchronization required by an object pool implementation is slower than simply allocating new objects. |
| Choose interfaces over abstract classes. If you know something is going to be a base class, your first choice should be to make it an interface, and only if you’re forced to have method definitions or member variables should you change it to an abstract class. An interface talks about what the client wants to do, while a class tends to focus on (or allow) implementation details. |