Structural Patterns
Structural patterns are a category of design patterns in software engineering that focus on how classes and objects are composed to form larger structures. They provide solutions for organizing code to ensure flexibility, reusability, and maintainability by defining relationships between entities. Common examples include Adapter, Decorator, and Composite patterns, which help manage object composition and interface adaptation.
Developers should learn structural patterns when designing complex systems that require scalable and maintainable architectures, such as in large-scale applications or frameworks. They are particularly useful for integrating incompatible interfaces, adding responsibilities to objects dynamically, or building tree-like structures, making them essential for object-oriented programming and software design best practices.