12 - A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO PATTERN LANGUAGE

Summary

Kent comes clean. I'd never tried to explain patterns in print before, not at any length. This was a bit of an experiment for me. Looking at it now I'm a bit disappointed, because the presentation violates one of my cardinal rules of teaching—always go from concrete to abstract. Were I writing this again, I would take some disguised pattern I had presented earlier and present it both in idiom format and pattern format. Oh well…

One thing I like about the column is the emphasis on communication. Looking at the earlier columns, I'm surprised at how little I said about the importance of communicating through code. I'm sure I understood how important communication is, but I hadn't written about it since the early HOOPLA! articles.

This will be a departure from my code-oriented columns.

For the last six months I've been surreptitiously presenting my material using a technique that I've been working with for the past six years or so. This technique was derived from work done in architecture (buildings, not chips) to help people design comfortable spaces for themselves. The time has come to tell you what I've been leading up to, so that I can directly refer to these concepts in the future.