Question

Can anybody explain why the name ‘Decorator’ was chosen for the functionality conveyed by the Decorator design pattern?

I’ve always found that name fairly misleading, because decorator and marking interface sound very similar to me in their purpose. However, whereas a marker does not really ‘do anything’, decorators certainly do. But the term decorations to me implies passivity, which isn’t really the case with this pattern that is used to add functionality.

Answer 1

I believe that the origin of the term comes from the example use of decorating a user interface with different components, for example, scrollbars, close buttons, etc.

EDIT: Reference Page 308 in ‘Design Patterns in C#’ by Steven John Metsker:

One of the original applications of DECORATOR (and presumably the application from which DECORATOR derives its name) lies in the construction of GUI components.