Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with Delphi

By : Primož Gabrijelčič
Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with Delphi

By: Primož Gabrijelčič

Overview of this book

Design patterns have proven to be the go-to solution for many common programming scenarios. This book focuses on design patterns applied to the Delphi language. The book will provide you with insights into the language and its capabilities of a runtime library. You'll start by exploring a variety of design patterns and understanding them through real-world examples. This will entail a short explanation of the concept of design patterns and the original set of the 'Gang of Four' patterns, which will help you in structuring your designs efficiently. Next, you'll cover the most important 'anti-patterns' (essentially bad software development practices) to aid you in steering clear of problems during programming. You'll then learn about the eight most important patterns for each creational, structural, and behavioral type. After this, you'll be introduced to the concept of 'concurrency' patterns, which are design patterns specifically related to multithreading and parallel computation. These will enable you to develop and improve an interface between items and harmonize shared memories within threads. Toward the concluding chapters, you'll explore design patterns specific to program design and other categories of patterns that do not fall under the 'design' umbrella. By the end of this book, you'll be able to address common design problems encountered while developing applications and feel confident while building scalable projects.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Chapter 1. Introduction to patterns

Patterns are everywhere! In architecture, patterns help architects plan buildings and discuss their projects. In programming, they help programmers organize programs and think about the code. They also help to create beautiful knitwear, and help people navigate safely through traffic—in short, they affect your everyday life.

The human brain is a pattern—finding analog computer, so it is not surprising that we humans like to base our life around patterns. We programmers are especially fond of organized, pattern—based thinking.

There are different areas of programming where patterns can be applied, from organizational aspects to coding. This book deals mostly with a subset of programming patterns, namely design patterns. Before we start describing and implementing different design patterns, however, I'd like to talk to you a bit about the history of patterns, their best points, and how they are often misused in practice.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • What design patterns are
  • Why patterns are useful
  • The difference between patterns and idioms
  • The origins of design patterns
  • The classification of common patterns
  • Pattern misuse and anti-patterns