Analysis

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Analysis

Pattern comparison

Reviewing 3 patterns.

Criteria
creationalAbstract FactoryView pattern
structuralAdapterView pattern
structuralCompositeView pattern
Basics
Categorycreationalstructuralstructural
SummaryProvide an interface for creating families of related objects without specifying their concrete classes.Convert the interface of a class or module into another interface clients expect.Compose objects into tree structures to represent part-whole hierarchies and let clients work with individual and composite objects through the same interface.
IntentProvide an interface for creating families of related objects without specifying their concrete classes.Allow incompatible interfaces to work together without changing the consuming code.Compose objects into tree structures to represent part-whole hierarchies and let clients work with individual and composite objects through the same interface.
Decision factors
ProblemClient code needs to create families of related objects, but hardcoding concrete classes makes the code rigid and hard to swap.A client needs to talk to a legacy class or external service whose interface does not match the rest of the codebase.A system needs to treat individual objects and groups of objects uniformly, but the hierarchy becomes difficult to manage with separate code paths.
Tradeoffs
  • Adds an extra abstraction layer.
  • Can overcomplicate simple object creation.
  • Makes family-wide swapping and consistency much easier.
  • Adds an extra layer of indirection.
  • Can hide useful vendor-specific capabilities if overused.
  • Keeps integration code isolated from core domain logic.
  • Can make the design more abstract and harder to follow.
  • May require careful handling of operations that only apply to some nodes in the tree.
  • Makes recursive tree operations and client code much simpler.
Practical fit
Languages
  • typescript
  • java
  • python
  • react
  • angular
  • csharp
  • dotnet
  • typescript
  • java
  • python
  • go
  • csharp
  • dotnet
  • react
  • angular
  • react-native
  • typescript
  • java
  • python
  • angular
  • react
  • react-native
  • csharp
  • dotnet
Platforms
  • applications
  • ui systems
  • integration layers
  • applications
  • apis
  • service layers
  • integrations
  • web
  • backend
  • mobile
  • ui kits
  • cross-platform systems
Integration notesAbstract Factory is especially useful when your app must produce matching sets of related objects for a theme, provider, platform, or pipeline.Adapters are useful when exposing a stable boundary over a legacy API, vendor SDK, or payload format mismatch.Composite is useful when a hierarchy of nested objects should expose a common interface, such as files and folders, menus and submenus, org charts, widget trees, or scene graphs.