Decorator pattern is a structural design pattern that allows you to attach additional responsibilities to an object dynamically, without affecting the behavior of other objects from the same class. It's like adding sprinkles and frosting to your code cupcake - same great taste, but now with extra functionality!

How to use it in a sentence

• "I was going to just use the plain old CommandHandler, but then I remembered the Decorator pattern, so I wrapped it in a TransactionDecorator and a LoggingDecorator. Now it's like a command handling superhero!"

• "Yeah, we could just add all that extra functionality directly to the ReportGenerator class, but then it would be harder to maintain. Let's use the Decorator pattern instead and keep things nice and modular, like a set of Russian nesting dolls, but for code."

If you actually want to learn more...

• Decorated Command by Martin Fowler: A brief overview of how the Decorator pattern can be applied to commands in a command-oriented interface. https://martinfowler.com/bliki/DecoratedCommand.html

• Microservices by Martin Fowler: While not directly about the Decorator pattern, this article discusses various architectural patterns and principles, including modularity and separation of concerns, which are key benefits of using the Decorator pattern. https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html

• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler: This book covers a wide range of enterprise application architecture patterns, including the Decorator pattern and many others that can help you design more flexible and maintainable software systems. https://martinfowler.com/books/eaa.html

Note: the Developer Dictionary is in Beta. Please direct feedback to skye@statsig.com.