The life of a software developer is lived in a constant state of research and development. No two projects are the same. Sure, they might sound the same when describing them at a high level, however, once you get down to the gory details, things are rarely the same. Analysis of a particular problem space (given environmental factors such as business processes and available technology choices) can yield significant amounts of exploration into how to accomplish the feat du jour. What’s a developer to do? Try and make the details look as similar as possible.
Enter software design patterns
Software Design patterns help to provide a sense of familiarity to a solution in the face of a problem that is wholly unfamiliar. They provide exactly what their namesake implies: a pattern for modeling a solution to a problem. There are numerous patterns defined that cover an application from user interaction, through business process logic and all the way down to how relevant data is stored. During decomposition of requirements, developers can identify appropriate points at which to apply these patterns.
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When solutions are familiar, they can be built more rapidly and with higher quality. At Synoptek, software design patterns play a role in each solution we build. With the diverse range of clients and markets in which we operate, software design patterns can provide a common dialect and recognizable threads in each piece of software we craft. These aspects afford our development team with increased agility and the ability to leverage individual strengths in our effort to create the best solution possible for our clients. And although each solution we build is unique and tailored to client needs, the practice of implementing software design patterns allows us to focus more heavily on the application details that will provide the most value to our clients. For more information on specific design patterns, take a look at Martin Fowler’s Catalog of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture.