Como dissociar a abstração de software da implementação?

In Indian classical music, there are specific patterns of notes, known as "ragas," that musicians follow. Each raga has its own unique combination of notes and rules on how to play them. These ragas are like design patterns for musicians. For instance, imagine you're learning a raga that evokes a feeling of calmness. The pattern of notes you play will create that soothing atmosphere. So, in both music and programming, design patterns are like well-established structures that help you create something beautiful and functional. They guide you, just like the rules of a raga guide a musician, making sure everything fits together harmoniously.

When I was a "young" developer, I, of course, tried to read the famous - Gangs of Four (GoF) Design Patterns book, which is considered until today as the holy grail of design pattern books. However I don't feel it really helped me. I believe that only after you "curved some notches on your belt", you will be able to "see" and "recognize" places where you can provide a good "separate of concern" code. What is important, in my opinion, is to be familiar with typed programming languages like Java, C# or just using Typescript. Because, in python, for example, that doesn't have "interfaces", it will be more difficult to decouple abstraction from implementation.

Design patterns solve problems generally about scalability and maintainability and efficiency, with enough observation the problems observed like "why is so hard to add another type of file processing to my application?" will turn into "what is the right pattern to solve this problem?"

Design patterns aren't mere code snippets to be inserted into solutions. They should organically emerge from the code itself. If you're imposing them, you're likely not using them correctly. During my journey of learning design patterns, I came realisation: merely reading code offers little value unless you grasp the underlying reasons for that particular implementation and the problems it aims to address. Once you've thoroughly comprehended the problem at hand, the next step is to integrate the pattern into your own codebase. Rather than creating an entirely new application, strive to implement it within your existing code, enhancing its overall coherence and efficiency.

To decouple software abstraction from implementation, use interfaces or abstract classes to define behaviors without specifying how they're implemented. Apply Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) by depending on abstractions rather than concrete implementations. Implement Dependency Injection (DI) to inject dependencies at runtime, enabling flexibility in switching implementations. Use design patterns like Factory, Strategy, and Bridge to separate abstraction from implementation details. Adhere to SOLID principles for focused, cohesive abstractions that are open for extension but closed for modification. These practices promote flexibility and maintainability in software systems.

The Bridge Pattern is a structural design pattern that separates an object's abstraction from its implementation, allowing them to vary independently.

The Bridge design pattern proposes refactoring this exponentially explosive inheritance hierarchy into two orthogonal hierarchies – one for platform-independent abstractions, and the other for platform-dependent implementations.

The Bridge Pattern is a design pattern that decouples an abstraction from its implementation, allowing them to evolve independently. It enhances flexibility and adaptability in software design by isolating changes in one from affecting the other, facilitating easy platform support or future modifications.

The Bridge Pattern is a structural design pattern that separates an object's abstraction from its implementation, allowing them to vary independently. It accomplishes this separation by introducing an interface (or abstract class) for the abstraction and another interface (or abstract class) for the implementation. Here's how the Bridge Pattern works: Abstraction: The Abstraction represents the high-level logic and functionality that the client code interacts with. It contains a reference to an instance of the Implementation interface (or abstract class) and delegates specific tasks to it. The Abstraction may define its own methods or operations, which can be composed of calls to the Implementation methods.

The Bridge Pattern works by separating an abstraction (e.g., an interface or abstract class) from its implementation (e.g., concrete classes). It uses composition to bridge the gap between them, allowing the abstraction and implementation to vary independently. This enables flexibility as you can switch and extend implementations without affecting the abstraction. Clients interact with the abstraction, which delegates its operations to the implementation, promoting loose coupling and ease of maintenance.

1. Decoupling Abstraction from Implementation: One of the primary benefits of the Bridge Pattern is that it decouples the high-level abstraction from its low-level implementation. This separation allows you to modify either the abstraction or implementation without affecting the other, promoting flexibility in the design. 2. Enhanced Extensibility: It makes it easier to extend and add new abstractions or implementations independently. You can introduce new concrete implementations or abstractions without altering existing code, reducing the risk of introducing bugs. 3. Improved Maintainability: Separating abstraction and implementation results in more modular and maintainable code.

It is a great way to expose complex implementations to your consumers. They do not have to know the intricacies of your code. They can simply conform to the exposed interface. While watching TV you don't have to know how either the TV works or the remote works. Your purpose is to learn, entertain, and rejuvenate yourself instead of getting into the weeds.

1. Shape Drawing Application: Consider a shape drawing application where you have different shapes (e.g., circles, rectangles) and different rendering methods (e.g., vector graphics, raster graphics). The Bridge Pattern can be used to separate the shape abstraction from the rendering implementation. You would have shape classes (abstraction) and rendering classes (implementation), and you can easily switch between different shapes and rendering methods without modifying their core logic.

Identify Abstractions and Implementations: Determine the high-level abstractions (e.g., different types of shapes) that you want to define in your system. Identify the low-level implementations (e.g., rendering mechanisms) that can vary independently. Create Abstraction and Implementation Interfaces: Define two separate interfaces: one for the abstraction and one for the implementation. These interfaces should be loosely coupled, allowing them to vary independently.

In real-world scenarios, putting design patterns into action demands both understanding and time. Skilled software developers have the insight to identify the aspects of a solution that might change frequently and apply design patterns to ensure maintainability and loose coupling.

Although bridge design pattern allows a decent separation between abstraction and implementation, one needs to be cognizant while applying this such that the complexity is not increased due to overuse of certain principles like HAS-A relationship. To elaborate, bridge pattern heavily relies on composition (HAS-A relationship) and that could lead to multiple method calls to perform a single operation. This may increase complexity and may cause slight delays or performance issues in operation completion due to stack of multiple calls. This may not be problematic if number of interfaces are limited but can be hard to manage if one has a plethora of interfaces exposed with single or limited implementation.