A tool for teaching interactions between design patterns

Abstract

We describe the Patterns+UML tool that has been designed to help students of a first year object-oriented programming (OOP) course to apply design patterns to UML class diagrams, to analyze the code generated after their application, and especially to learn how different design patterns interact each other when they share some classes that play a different role in each pattern.

PatternCoder

“…Patterns+UML [Denegri et al 2008], like PatternCoder, is an educational tool designed to provide support for the implementation of design patterns. The authors emphasize its use for exploring situations where a class can play roles in more than one design pattern, and they correctly state in comparison that PatternCoder does not support interaction between patterns.…”

“…The authors of 5 http://code.google.com/p/patterncoder PatternCoder: A Programming Support Tool for Learning Binary Class Associations . the Patterns+UML tool [Denegri et al 2008] emphasize this limitation in comparison to their tool, and we acknowledge and plan to address this.…”

Educational Programming Environments for Enhancing Conceptual Design in the Object-Oriented Paradigm: A Systematic Mapping Study

“…Several difficulties have been recorded in the literature regarding the use of classes, such as (Xinogalos, 2015): difficulty in comprehending that a class models an entity in the program domain (Eckerdal & Thuné, 2005); a class is viewed as a collection of objects instead of an abstraction (Ragonis & Ben-Ari, 2005); difficulty in writing programs with multiple classes (Carter & Fowler, 1998) or composed classes (Ragonis & Ben-Ari, 2005). • Design patterns (Azimullah et al, 2020; Denegri et al, 2008). Another important topic that is tightly related to OOP is the learning difficulties that students face with design patterns.…”

“…• Design patterns (Azimullah et al, 2020; Denegri et al, 2008). Another important topic that is tightly related to OOP is the learning difficulties that students face with design patterns.…”