Speaker: James O. Coplien

Pattern Foundations

Track: Patterns, friday 10:15 - 11:05

After 17 years, we may be on the verge of a coming-of-age of the pattern paradigm shift. When seven of us launched the pattern discipline back in 1993, the Gang of Four wasn't what we had in mind. However, that book captured people's imagination — or lack thereof — and displaced the original vision for more than a decade. Most programmers still adhere to that vision of simple, individual fixes and symmetric structure: simple and elegant in the small, the way a Lego® is elegant, but unable to capture the daily complexity of software design. Today's systems thinkers are starting to think in terms of complex grammars of patterns, called pattern languages, that capture the design process for truly complex systems. Their symmetry is broken, but beautiful in the large in the way nature is beautiful. In this session we will see Veli-Pekka's pattern language of electro-mechanical control. We will hear Mike tell us of an early pattern language called Scrum he wrote together with a guy named Jeff, and about how the Scrum community is using patterns to support its own sober evolution. And Kevin will give us a bit more to take home.