Adapter and Facade are two structural patterns that manage complexity at the boundaries of a system. Adapter makes incompatible interfaces work together. Facade simplifies a complex subsystem behind a clean, high-level interface. Both appear constantly in real PHP projects – I show implementations and concrete examples from Magento 2.

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Decorator and Proxy look similar at first glance – both wrap another object and implement the same interface. The intent is different. Decorator adds new behaviour. Proxy controls access. This post covers both structural patterns in depth, with PHP implementations, concrete use cases, and a comparison that clarifies when to reach for each one.

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Singleton and Builder are two more creational patterns from the GoF catalogue. Singleton is probably the most controversial – often misused, but legitimate in specific contexts. Builder shines when constructing complex objects with many optional parameters. I show both with PHP implementations, pitfalls, and practical examples.

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Factory Method and Abstract Factory are both creational patterns that remove the new keyword from business logic – but they solve different problems. Factory Method delegates creation to subclasses. Abstract Factory creates families of related objects. I implement both from scratch, compare them in a table, and show where Simple Factory fits as a pragmatic alternative.

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