What are the essential OOP design patterns for project management?

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a popular paradigm for application development that organizes code into classes, objects, and methods. OOP design patterns are reusable solutions to common problems that arise when working with OOP concepts. In this article, you will learn about some of the essential OOP design patterns for project management and how they can help you improve your code quality, readability, and maintainability.

1 Singleton Pattern

The singleton pattern ensures that only one instance of a class exists in the application and provides a global access point to it. This can be useful for managing resources that need to be shared across the application, such as database connections, configuration files, or logging systems. The singleton pattern can also prevent conflicts and errors caused by multiple instances of the same class. However, you should use the singleton pattern sparingly, as it can introduce tight coupling and make testing more difficult.

Add your perspective

Saumyajit Mandal (Sam)

Sr. Solutions Architect at RBC
Report contribution
One thing to say Singletons are good for understanding the principles of the OOP paradigm, but it's not quite friendly in the enterprise world these days where tight coupling can cause viable problems. Also it's tough to get the best of testing practice out of Singletons when microservices come into play. Rather it can be used in small scale projects for defining single point of entry such as DB connection or config files, which will help in increasing code reliability and reusability. But for a bigger picture different flavors of upstream downstream and with security restrictions Singleton may not be an ideal to-go design pattern.

Like

2 Factory Pattern

The factory pattern is a creational pattern that abstracts the logic of creating objects from the client code. Instead of using the new operator or constructors directly, the client code calls a factory method that returns an object of the appropriate type based on some parameters. The factory pattern can simplify the code, reduce duplication, and make it easier to add new types of objects without changing the existing code. The factory pattern can also support the principle of dependency inversion, which states that high-level modules should not depend on low-level modules, but on abstractions.

Add your perspective

Saumyajit Mandal (Sam)

Sr. Solutions Architect at RBC
(edited)
Report contribution
One thing I must mention while utilizing the power of design patterns in the OOP programming paradigm is the power of creational pattern and the most important in the category would be the factory pattern. Whenever in your industry you need to write a software and you face a situation to return unlimited objects of the desired type, you must try to implement a factory pattern which will just use the abstraction and return objects based on your parameters. Code will be simpler yet robust with less usage of costly operators and/or constructors. One of the best approaches to simplistic code would be this.

Like

3 Strategy Pattern

The strategy pattern is a behavioral pattern that defines a family of algorithms, encapsulates them in separate classes, and makes them interchangeable at runtime. The strategy pattern can help you achieve the open-closed principle, which states that classes should be open for extension but closed for modification. By using the strategy pattern, you can add new algorithms or modify existing ones without affecting the client code that uses them. The strategy pattern can also enhance the readability and testability of the code, as each algorithm is isolated and well-defined.

Add your perspective

Saumyajit Mandal (Sam)

Sr. Solutions Architect at RBC
(edited)
Report contribution
Say the tech stack of your project is based on OOP and you have to implement design patterns to get the best practices in place and make sure to give multiple options bundled for clients which can be interchanged during runtime. In one such example, the Strategy pattern is used to implement the various payment methods in an e-commerce application. After selecting a product to purchase, a customer picks a payment method: either Paypal or credit card or debit card. Here each algo is isolated increasing the testing capability and code readability. This is one classic example of strategy design pattern implementation.

Like
Yuvaraj Madheswaran

GM Financial
Report contribution
Adherence to Design Principles: The application of the strategy pattern aligns with key software design principles, such as the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) and Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP), further enhancing the overall maintainability and adaptability of the lending platform. Enhanced Collaboration: The strategy pattern fosters collaboration among development teams. Different teams can work on distinct algorithms simultaneously, as long as they adhere to the defined strategy interface, promoting parallel development.

Like

4 Observer Pattern

The observer pattern is a behavioral pattern that defines a one-to-many relationship between a subject and multiple observers. The subject maintains a list of observers and notifies them of any changes in its state. The observers can then update their behavior accordingly. The observer pattern can help you implement the principle of loose coupling, which states that classes should interact with each other as little as possible. By using the observer pattern, you can decouple the subject from the observers and allow them to communicate indirectly through a common interface.

Add your perspective

5 Template Method Pattern

The template method pattern is a behavioral pattern that defines the skeleton of an algorithm in a base class and lets subclasses override some steps without changing the overall structure. The template method pattern can help you avoid code duplication and promote code reuse by extracting the common logic into the base class and delegating the specific details to the subclasses. The template method pattern can also support the principle of inversion of control, which states that the flow of control should be inverted from the high-level modules to the low-level modules.

Add your perspective

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

Add your perspective

What are the essential OOP design patterns for project management?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Singleton Pattern

2 Factory Pattern

3 Strategy Pattern

4 Observer Pattern

5 Template Method Pattern

6 Here’s what else to consider

Application Development

Rate this article

Thanks for your feedback

More articles on Application Development

More relevant reading