Design Patterns or one of the key things in Software Development. These patterns will help to improve coding style and also improves the productivity during development or while design
Introduction
In my experience many people asked me
Why We Need Design Pattern ?
Can't we live without it. Yes we can but if you don't know about Design Patterns you may loose some of the time figuring out on solving the problem or sometimes you may come with some coding style which may cause some issues in future.
Overview of Design Patterns
There are many problems that we may face while designing an application it would be very easy if we document it and keep it as reference for our next generation. So if someone gets the same problem they can use your documented solution which is called as Pattern.
There are many Patterns that are already proven and documented for our references. Those patterns or combination's of patterns may solve your problem while designing application.
You can find most of the patterns and documented by Gang Of Four and those are stepping stones of all the implementations by Sun Java and others even in .NET and other languages.
Below is one of the diagram that i like most which is from Head First Design Patterns Book.
The above diagram illustrates a simple truth about Design Patterns. If you are able to understand Design Patterns you will make your code with improved standards and this will also help others to easily understand based on the Patterns.
Conclusion
Always think through Patterns while you start Design or Coding. These Patterns will help you to make your application a success and it is highly recommended in Object Oriented Design which is the most common method in Software Design and Development