Creational Patterns are a category of design patterns in software development. These patterns deal with the process of object creation and provide proven solutions for creating objects in a software application.
Creational Patterns address common problems related to object creation by making the creation process more flexible, efficient, and independent of the type of objects being created. They promote decoupling between the client code (which triggers the creation process) and the created objects, enhancing the maintainability and extensibility of the code.
Some of the well-known Creational Patterns include:
Factory Method: Defines an interface for creating objects, with the concrete implementation of this interface handled by subclasses. This shifts the decision of actual object creation to the subclasses.
Abstract Factory: Provides an interface for creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying their concrete classes. This allows different variants of object families to be created.
Singleton: Ensures that a class has only one instance and provides a global access point to it.
Builder: Separates the construction of a complex object from its representation, allowing the same construction process to create different representations.
Prototype: Specifies the kinds of objects to create using a prototypical instance, which is cloned to produce new objects.
These Creational Patterns enable developers to optimize and manage the process of object creation by clearly dividing responsibilities and making object creation more flexible and controlled. This reduces complexity and enhances the maintainability of the software.