A simple approach to design patterns identification in programming code

The identification of Design Patterns in the code can help program maintenance and evolution processes: this is a way to understand the design and implementation of the program; this is a way for informed restructuring, improving the structure, and making changes to the code. The specialized literature presents quite a lot of approaches to identification, which in most cases are rather complex and very often ineffective. We offer in this paper a simple and practical approach to design patterns identification in programming code. It is an approach that is used for educational purposes within the framework of the "Software Design Patterns" course in TU-Varna. Although tested to identify a particular GoF Pattern - Singleton, the approach can be easily adapted to identify any other GoF pattern. The use of this approach in the educational practice has had its positive results, led to raising students' interest in software maintenance processes and to improving the efficiency of the learning process.