What is Software Development?
Software Development refers to a compilation of Information technological activities involved in creating, designing, deploying, and supporting software. Simply, it is the process of building up computer programs. The process is known as the Software Development Lifecycle and includes different phases that provide unique methods for building products to meet the user’s technical requirements and specifications. The Software Development Life Cycle provides an international standard for IT companies to build programs. The software offers a well-defined structure for the development teams to produce high-quality software. The Software Development Life Cycle consists of six majors steps including,
- Needs Identification
- Requirement Analysis
- Design
- Development and implementation
- Testing
- Deployment and maintenance
One of the stages of the software development life cycle that has a major influence on Software development is stage ‘Design’
Thereby, this review will be majorly focused on the Design patterns used in software development and the Pros and Cons of it.
Design Patterns and Software Development
Design is the third stage of the lifecycle of Software development. This is simply the architectural design of the software. Thereby, Software engineers or developers use various design patterns to design the software. Software design patterns are software templates that can be customized according to requirements and thereby aid in solving a problem. The major categories of design patterns that are being used widely in the field are as follows;
- Creational Design Pattern
- Structural Design Pattern
- Behavioral Design Pattern
- JEE Design Pattern
A design pattern is essentially needed for the development of the software to represent the best practices adopted in software development.
Advantages of using Design Patterns in Software Development
Precisely, The pros of using designs in software development are immense. Thus, the design pattern advantages are as follows.
As a whole, design patterns aid in the analysis of the abstract areas of a program by providing well-tested concrete solutions. Due to this the solutions are real and are found to be tested therefore there is no reason for retesting for correctness. A clear scenario of the design that is to be implemented could be done faster with the use of design patterns. This is because the codes could be written faster and more efficiently. Furthermore, the usage of design patterns encourages the reuse of codes and provides changes in case the requirements and specifications are different. And this could be done faster and efficiently since the background is already built.
Design patterns influence the use of more legible paths by following the proper codes for a problem. Moving on, the usage of design patterns provides a common language for programmers that is extremely useful for them. Design patterns use object-oriented concepts such as inheritance and polymorphisms in the process. Since design patterns could be reused it improves the quality of the further development of the applications. The usage of design patterns in software development is more sophisticated and approachable than the use of basic arrays, linked lists, and binary trees.
All the design patterns have a well-descriptive name therefore the basic idea of the developed object and its working could be observed. Descriptive words such as adapter, proxy, and visitor are used by design patterns that make identification much easier and more approachable.
The common design patterns used in software development have their own benefits. Thereby, the design pattern benefits of the common designs are mentioned below;
The Singleton Design Pattern and Its benefits
This is one of the simplest design patterns talked through by software developers. The pros of using designs as the singleton design pattern is wide. This pattern involves only one class to instantiate itself. Therefore only one instance will be created and a global point for that instance will be provided. Therefore, the singleton design pattern is considered to be one of the beginner friendly design patterns.
The Strategy Design Pattern and Its Benefits
Here the basic problem of the completed application is reviewed at once. Therefore, this allows the developer to identify the objects and interface required for the application development. This is highly advantageous because the job can be done faster and more efficiently.
The Observer Design Pattern and Its Benefits
Using this design pattern, just as its name implies the developer has the entire freedom to describe the observed relationship in the application
The Cascading Bridge Design Pattern and Its Benefits
This design pattern is widely used in the field and benefits developers since it provides API variability.
Thereby, the above signifies the basic design pattern pros and thus, would be helpful in choosing a more efficient pattern for software development.
The Disadvantages of Design Patterns in Software Development
Just as with every other thing in the world, the aspects of Information Technology have their own cons too. Thereby, the usage of design patterns in software development has several disadvantages as mentioned below.
For the use of design patterns extensive knowledge is needed. If in any case, the teams involved in this work are inexperienced, it could lead to bugs and unexpected delays. Thus, it is a major drawback of its usage. Furthermore, not all problems could be solved using the available design patterns. But the usage of the same design pattern simultaneously reduces the uniqueness and limits the creativity of finding better solutions for the problems.
The decision between whether to use a design pattern or not would be tough. The usage of patterns does not lead to the use of direct codes. Furthermore, software development teams may be overloaded with patterns that could lead to inefficient work.
In Conclusion
With the evolution of the technological world software development has played a major role from the beginning of its existence. The sole basis of software development is the software design patterns. They are the concrete pillars keeping up the software development cycle in flow. A developer’s beginner-friendly design patterns are extremely essential in the field. Thus, the design pattern impact on software development is massively high. The above review has the design pattern pros and cons explained widely. Mainly, the simple design pattern benefits have been explained thoroughly. Nevertheless, these design patterns have their own pros and cons that have been rated in the technological field.
Keywords:
- Design pattern advantages
- Design pattern benefits
- Design pattern impact on software development
- Simple design pattern benefits
- Beginner-friendly design patterns
- Basic design pattern pros
- Design pattern pros and cons explained
