Often times, when I want to make something, I always want to make it the best way I can; atleast, to a degree. Though, figuring out how to do such a thing could take a lot of time. On top of that, often times I find myself doing things one way, but then finding out that someone else did it in a much better way than myself. So what do I do when I find myself in such a predicament? Well, I just follow what that other person did to get the best possible results, but I do it in a way so that it applies to whatever I am trying to make. In other words, I’m basically using that person’s method as some sort of template, because why use my time thinking of a way to do something when someone else already did it way better than I?
I think a good example of me doing this is (usually) whenever I talk to people. I am not good at talking at all, I have the social skills of a raw potato. So in order to circumvent this, I always talk like how someone else would talk. For instance, when I’m waiting in a line for a fast food restaurant, I talk like how the person before me talks when I’m ordering my food. Now whenever I order food, I just use the same sentence structure and such. Doing this makes it so that I don’t panic about messing up what I’m going to say to the cashier when it’s finally my turn; yes, this used to be a problem for me and yes, that’s sad.
So why am I talking about templates? Well, that’s because templates are basically what design patterns are in coding. Essentially, you follow a coding template, then you can apply the same template when trying to make other code. One could also attempt to dissect the template in order to learn something from it and apply it to other coding areas. It is extremely helpful when programming and it saves tons of time while also preventing future headaches.
When it comes to my code, I use coding patterns very often, or at least my definition of the term. Many times when I’m lost as to what to do, which in itself happens a lot, I try to find a template to follow. No, I don’t just copy the template willy-nilly and call it a day; instead I try to find something that has some similarity to what I want to make, dissect it, and then re-piece it together into what I want to make. This method has saved me a lot of times, like absolutely.