Design Patterns: An Important Part of a Recipe
04 Dec 2024
Design Patterns: An Important Part of a Recipe
An important part of cooking, or anything related to making food, is having a recipe. Recipes contain the necessary steps and instructions that help us create the target dish. Design patterns are very similar; they are the recipe in code that allows programmers to tackle specific problems. Although these design patterns aren’t the “final product”, they help programmers with making progress to getting the final product. In cooking recipes, each step takes on a specific part of the dish that is necessary in order to create the desired dish. For example, when baking cookies, you need the cookie dough. Whether you intend on making the dough from scratch or just buying it from the store, this is an important step because the dough is the base of the cookie and without it, how can you make cookies? That also goes for the kind of cookies you want to make, such as chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar, etc.
Understanding the Importance of Recipes
Some dishes have variants, which will require a recipe that is slightly different than the original. Using the cookie example, depending on what cookie a person wants to make may also change how much ingredients are used in that cookie. Design patterns are the same. Depending how a programmer wants to approach a certain problem will determine how they are going to find a solution to solve it. Design patterns help programmers to find ways to create code that helps their code to be organized, and could also be reused later on to solve future problems in code. For example, for one of my ICS classes, I was given the task to create a calculator. One way I could’ve approached this task was to implement code all in the main, or I could create functions that take on different math operations and apply those in the main after. While the first way may seem easier, the organization of the code isn’t as nice compared to the second option. By creating functions that take on the use of different math operations, it can make my code a little more organized and less chunky. This design pattern is called a Command Method Design Pattern. This pattern allows programmers some sort of object that handles something specific, which can then be used later on in other parts of code. These functions that I make are given the task to handle specific math operations, which are then used later on to make the calculator work as a calculator.
The End of the Recipe
Understanding what design patterns are and how to use them are important because they help programmers to make their desired product by providing necessary steps or making code organized to make the efficiency of writing their code better. Design patterns help with making a structure for your code, which can better help with efficiency and organization. Recipes are the same way as they give us the necessary steps to make dishes by providing clear instructions and breaking down the process into manageable tasks. Just as recipes ensure that every ingredient is used in the right amount and at the right time, design patterns guide programmers to implement solutions that are both effective and reusable. This structured approach prevents mistakes, saves time, and produces consistent results, whether you’re cooking a meal or writing a program.