Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with C++ (Second Edition) - Second Edition

By : Fedor G. Pikus
5 (1)
Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with C++ (Second Edition) - Second Edition

5 (1)
By: Fedor G. Pikus

Overview of this book

C++ is a general-purpose programming language designed for efficiency, performance, and flexibility. Design patterns are commonly accepted solutions to well-recognized design problems. In essence, they are a library of reusable components, only for software architecture, and not for a concrete implementation. This book helps you focus on the design patterns that naturally adapt to your needs, and on the patterns that uniquely benefit from the features of C++. Armed with the knowledge of these patterns, you’ll spend less time searching for solutions to common problems and tackle challenges with the solutions developed from experience. You’ll also explore that design patterns are a concise and efficient way to communicate, as patterns are a familiar and recognizable solution to a specific problem and can convey a considerable amount of information with a single line of code. By the end of this book, you’ll have a deep understanding of how to use design patterns to write maintainable, robust, and reusable software.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with C++ Features and Concepts
5
Part 2: Common C++ Idioms
10
Part 3: C++ Design Patterns
18
Part 4: Advanced C++ Design Patterns

Guidelines for using type erasure

What problems does type erasure solve, and when is the cost of the solution acceptable? First of all, it is important to not lose sight of the original goal: type erasure is a design pattern that helps with the separation of concerns, a very powerful design technique. It is used to create an abstraction for a certain behavior when the implementation of said behavior can be provided by an open set of possibly unrelated types.

It is also used as an implementation technique, mostly to aid in breaking dependencies between compilation units and other program components.

Before we can answer the question “Is type erasure worth the cost?”, we need to consider the alternatives. In many cases, the alternative is another way to implement the same abstraction: polymorphic class hierarchies or function pointers. The performance of either option is similar to that of the type erasure (in its optimal implementation), so it comes down to convenience...