Summary

In this chapter, we looked at some of the principles that underpin many design patterns. We looked at the use of composition to enable object combination and recombination at runtime, resulting in more flexible structures than would be available using inheritance alone. I introduced you to decoupling, the practice of extracting software components from their context to make them more generally applicable. We reviewed the importance of interface as a means of decoupling clients from the details of implementation.

In the coming chapters, we will examine some design patterns in detail.