Do you know the difference between design patterns and architectural patterns?
If you're unsure about the answer, relax—you're not alone. By the end of this, you'll know clear-cut difference, and maybe you'll get a chance to show off your knowledge in a round of friends.
However, if you want to be ahead of most developers, this is a must.
Knowing when to use each can help you build applications faster and make them easier to manage.
Let's dive in and clear up the mystery.
What Are Design Patterns?
Design patterns are essential, reusable solutions to recurring coding problems.
They help solve smaller, specific problems you often face during coding—like managing object creation or decoupling components.
Categories of Design Patterns
The concept of design patterns was popularized by the "Gang of Four" (GoF) in their classic book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
In this book, they introduced three main categories of design patterns: Creational, Structural, and Behavioral.
Creational Patterns provide techniques for creating objects in a flexible and controlled way, reducing complexity. Examples include Singleton and Factory.
Structural Patterns help organize objects and classes to form larger, more efficient structures. Examples include Adapter and Composite.
Behavioral Patterns manage communication between objects to ensure flexible interactions. Examples include Observer and Strategy.
Over the past decades, new design patterns have been discovered as the software development landscape has evolved. Examples are Dependency Injection, Event Sourcing, and CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation).
Purpose and Benefits
- Solve coding problems by providing targeted solutions.
- Make code consistent by using common approaches.
- Make components reusable for efficient development.
- Simplifies the understanding of your team coworkers about your code with common patterns.
- Reduce complexity in specific parts of your code.
When to Use Design Patterns
Design patterns are used during the coding phase of development.
What Are Architectural Patterns?
Architectural patterns are essential, reusable solutions to recurring system-level problems.
While design patterns handle lower-level problems, architectural patterns take a broader view.
They focus on organizing your application's overall architecture—they’re the blueprints for how your system functions as a whole.
Examples of Architectural Patterns
- Layered Architecture separates the system into layers like presentation, business logic, and data.
- MVC (Model-View-Controller) organizes code to separate data, UI, and control logic.
- Microservices split the system into smaller, independent services.
Purpose and Benefits
- Shape the system's structure with high-level solutions.
- Make your project foundation scalable so it's ready for growth.
- Set clear boundaries to make system management easier.
- Improve interactions between different system parts.
- Provide stability as your app evolves over time.
When to Use Architectural Patterns
Architectural patterns are used during the planning phase, before you even start coding, to shape how different parts of your system will interact.
The Clear-Cut Differences You Need to Know
You must have noted some differences between them already. Let's clarify these points.
Abstraction Level
- Design Patterns work at a low level to solve specific implementation problems.
- Architectural Patterns operate at a high level to organize the system.
Scope
- Design Patterns affect specific sections of code.
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Architectural Patterns impact the entire system.
Development Stage
Design Patterns are applied during the development stage.
Architectural Patterns are decided in the planning phase.
Example
Imagine you're starting a project from scratch and need to figure out how to organize the entire system.
You might decide to use MVC (architectural pattern) to lay the foundation—breaking up the user interface, business logic, and data layer to keep everything organized and manageable as the project grows.
During the coding phase, you come across a problem: you need to notify multiple parts of your app when an event happens.
This is where a design pattern like the Observer pattern (design pattern) comes into play. It helps you efficiently update multiple views whenever data changes.
Why Are They So Easy to Confuse?
It’s no wonder developers often confuse design and architectural patterns—they do have some similarities in practice.
Terminology Confusion
Patterns like MVC can be used as an architectural pattern or a design pattern, depending on the context.
When structuring the entire system, MVC acts as an architectural pattern to organize components.
When coding a specific feature, MVC can also serve as a design pattern to manage interactions in an OOP context between parts of that feature.
Same Goals
Both design and architectural patterns are typical solutions to common problems. When a solution is repeated across projects, it eventually gets a name and becomes a pattern.
The key here is scope: architectural patterns work on the macro level, while design patterns focus on the micro.
Conclusion
So, now you know the difference between design patterns and architectural patterns.
Not just the definition, but when and why to use each one.
Remember, it’s not just about having the right tools, but knowing when to reach for each one. Next time you're working on a project, take a second to think—is this a design pattern moment, or do you need to step back and consider the architecture?
Mastering both approaches will make you develop systems better and faster.
Ready to put this into practice and level up your skills? Start here and now. You've got this.
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