Walk through (with practical examples) a handful of the original patterns the Gang of Four documented in C++.

Design Patterns Revisited

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software is nearly twenty years old by my watch. Unless you’re looking over my shoulder, there’s a good chance Design Patterns will be old enough to drink by the time you read this. For an industry as quickly moving as software, that’s practically ancient. The enduring popularity of the book says something about how timeless design is compared to many frameworks and methodologies.

While I think Design Patterns is still relevant, we’ve learned a lot in the past couple of decades. In this section, we’ll walk through a handful of the original patterns the Gang of Four documented. For each pattern, I hope to have something useful or interesting to say.

I think some patterns are overused (Singleton), while others are underappreciated (Command). A couple are in here because I want to explore their relevance specifically to games (Flyweight and Observer). Finally, sometimes I just think it’s fun to see how patterns are enmeshed in the larger field of programming (Prototype and State).