Hello! Today, we'll venture into the realm of design patterns. Specifically, we'll tackle exercises that apply a single design pattern to problem-solving. Mastering these patterns is a surefire way to extend your coding skills.
Our goal today is to fortify your understanding of when and how to apply specific Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) design patterns. These patterns include Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Composition, and Abstraction.
We'll dissect four real-life scenarios and determine which pattern is applicable and why.
Let's get underway!
The Encapsulation pattern proves beneficial for the development of a Database Management System (DBMS). Each DBMS table represents a class, the fields represent private data members, and the functions operating on this data serve as methods.
Encapsulation ensures that data members are accessed through methods that promote data integrity and prevent inadvertent anomalies. Here's a mini-code snippet to support this concept:
In this context, Encapsulation restricts direct access to employee data, presenting a protective layer via designated methods.
When transitioning to GUI development, consider the creation of controls like buttons or checkboxes. Despite belonging to different classes, each responds differently when clicked. This situation illustrates Polymorphism, which allows us to handle different objects uniformly via a common interface.
Check out this illustrative example:
Despite sharing the common click interface, different controls display unique responses. This characteristic demonstrates Polymorphism.
Let's explore the Composition design pattern through a Ruby approach to create a simple web page structure. Here, we'll build a fundamental structure representing a webpage composed of various elements like headers, paragraphs, and lists. This abstraction allows us to understand how composite objects work together to form a larger system.
In this code, we've designed a web page structure using the Composition design pattern. Each web page element (Header, Paragraph, and List) is a WebPageElement, allowing for unified handling while maintaining their specific behaviors (rendering as HTML elements).
The WebPage class acts as a composite object that can contain an arbitrary number of WebPageElement instances, each representing different parts of a web page. By adding these elements to the WebPage and invoking the display method, we dynamically compose a complete web page structure in HTML format.
Consider creating a Vehicle class in Ruby. Here, Abstraction comes into play. You expose only the necessary functionality and abstract away the internal workings of the Vehicle.
Let's see this in code:
Here, the Vehicle class establishes a blueprint by outlining necessary methods such as start_engine(), stop_engine(), and drive(). The Car class inherits from Vehicle, providing concrete implementations while hiding the internal state management (@engine_running). This is a basic instance of Abstraction, which simplifies the interaction with the class and hides underlying complexity.
Let's recap the major OOP patterns:
Encapsulation: This pattern confines data and related methods into one unit, veiling direct data access.Abstraction: This pattern offers a simplified interface, cloaking complexity.Polymorphism: This pattern facilitates treating different objects as related objects of a common superclass.Composition: This pattern builds elaborate systems by composing closely related objects.
Reflect on these principles and practice applying them to a variety of scenarios to better recognize suitable patterns.
Great job! You've explored the practical applications of OOP design patterns. We've examined the use of Encapsulation in Database Management Systems, the pivotal role of Polymorphism in GUI development, the importance of Composition when designing a web page builder, and how Abstraction helps to build a vehicle structure.
Next up are hands-on exercises to reinforce these concepts. Remember, practice is the master key to understanding these concepts. So keep coding!
