From Code Smells to Strategy Spells: Boosting Maintainability

Design patterns aren’t just academic trivia—they’re practical tools to tame complexity, improve maintainability, and keep code resilient over time. In this talk, we’ll learn how to spot the moments when a pattern actually helps, using the Strategy Pattern as our hands-on example. We’ll start from a real case: managing dynamic behavior (e.g., rendering buttons based on an object’s state) that devolved into a tangle of if/else. Step by step, we’ll refactor to an elegant, scalable Strategy-based solution. You’ll see how to identify code smells that signal the need for a pattern, when not to use one, and how to keep your design flexible without over-engineering. Expect clear before/after comparisons, testable seams, and a lightweight checklist you can apply on Monday.