Design pattern help

Question

I have some algorithms to do that are very similar in very aspects but are all different.

I'll try to give an example of what I mean.

Let's assume I have a Robot class. This class should be the "base" of all classes. It provides basic mechanisms to make the robot work in its environment. It might or not have to work by itself (with this I mean it can either be an abstract class, that is useless by itself, or if possible, to have basics mechanisms to be ready to work).

All robots have hands. But some robots will have human-like hands, other will have blades, other will have razors. I could do a base class called RobotBase and then create RobotHumandHand, RobotBladeHand and RobotRazorHand. But they also can have different heads, different eyes, different legs, different arms, etc. Is there any easy way I can address this? I'd like to put this in a way that is a bit like LEGO, so I could just define a robot and "add" the pieces I want. Maybe through interfaces? I am not even aware if those exist in python(that's the language I'll be using).

Any comments / suggestions are really appreciated! Thanks!

Answer 1

The design patterns I'd probably go with for such a problem are: Dependency Injection and a framework to go with it, the Composite pattern, and the Builder pattern. They should basically let you separate the creation of your Robots from their use.

Answer 2

I think your robot should have a list of ports i.e. a number of injected components each robot may have. Your Robot class will be a container of RobotParts. You can have specific parts to have specific interfaces. RobotHand extends RobotPart and Robot class has a field that holds a list of RobotHand implementations (you can limit it to 2 hands, but in general case there could be more). You can do the same with RobotHead that will inherit from RobotPart and also there will be a field in Robot class holding implementation of RobotHead. In its turn RobotHead may hold a list of RobotEye implementations and so on. Then your specific Robot implementations may inherit their behavior from base class or take advantage of configuration e.g. by using RobotBladeHands if available.