I think it's a reasonable critique of the concept of Pattern Language as adopted by IT. The interlocking nature of the patterns at various scales, the way that

I think it's a reasonable critique of the concept of Pattern Language as adopted by IT. The interlocking nature of the patterns at various scales, the way that normal folk are expected to use the PL in situ to evoke and evolve design organically from an intrinsic understanding of their own needs and an informed intuition of the potentialities of the space, these are wholly omitted from GoF PL. Not, I think, because of any fault of them themselves, but because the very idea of applying Pattern Language thinking to computer system design was so novel at the time they proposed it. Certainly CA is a genius and I think we would all benefit from at least skimming the original "Pattern Language". (His latter work, "Nature of Order", is sublime.) It's worth reading CA's "A City Is Not a Tree" as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_is_Not_a_Tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_is_Not_a_Tree https://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/cityisnotatree.html https://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/cityisnotatree.html I feel like Jef Raskin's work ("Humane Interface", the Canon Cat) are closer in spirit to a PL for computers than the GoF pattern catalog.