Hands-On Design Patterns and Best Practices with Julia

The strategy pattern

The strategy pattern enables clients to select the best algorithm to use at runtime. Instead of coupling the client with predefined algorithms, the client can be configured with a specific algorithm (strategy) when necessary. In addition, sometimes the choice of algorithm cannot be determined ahead of time because the decision may depend on the input data, the environment, or something else.

In Julia, we can solve the problem using multiple dispatch. Let's consider the case of a Fibonacci sequence generator. As we learned from Chapter 6, Performance Patterns, the calculation of the n^th Fibonacci number can be tricky when we implement it recursively, so our first algorithm (strategy) may be memoization. In addition, we ...