Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design

Introducing the Bridge Pattern

According to the Gang of Four, the intent of the Bridge pattern is to “De-couple an abstraction from its implementation so that the two can vary independently.”^[1]

^[1] Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., Vlissides, J., Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995, p. 151.

I remember exactly what my first thoughts were when I read this:

Huh?

And then,

How come I understand every word in this sentence but I have no idea what it means?!

I knew that

• De-couple means to have things behave independently from each other or at least explicitly state what the relationship is, and

• Abstraction is how different things are related to each other conceptually.

And I thought ...