3 ms·

People always say this, but it's not true in practice. Any of these terms that are meaningful can easily be defined in a simple phrase. "Singleton" is an object

by gruseom 15y ago

People always say this, but it's not true in practice. Any of these terms that are meaningful can easily be defined in a simple phrase. "Singleton" is an object with only one instance. "Observer" is code that gets called when something changes. (Actually, I think most people who haven't been influenced by GoF say "publish/subscribe" or "handle an event".) Moreover, this is a problem in search of a solution. I don't see programmers having difficulty communicating with each other because of a lack of standard technical vocabulary. If there isn't a term for something, you just make one and say what you mean by it. That's what we've always done and it's what programmers not under the influence of "design patterns" always still do. No, design patterns come with considerably greater baggage than that. They invariably come with template code and a lot of language about when and how to apply the pattern. They're not trying to be a glossary, but a cookbook. Basically, the failed OO mantra of "reuse" took refuge at the meta level where it's impossible to disprove.

matthewburk 15y ago
Thank you for this. I agree with everything you have said, but have never been able to say it so well.
gnaritas 15y ago
> People always say this, but it's not true in practice. It is true in practice, try talking to programmers who don't know about design patterns and you'll find communication about architecture difficult. Maybe you haven't met enough of these programmers, but there's a shit ton of them in the corporate world. > If there isn't a term for something, you just make one and say what you mean by it. That's what we've always done and it's what programmers not under the influence of "design patterns" always still do. Yes, and it doesn't work well when you don't have a common vocabulary; you spend all your time trying to grok their little custom names for everything. Everything else you said is what happens when people mis-apply patterns and think they're code templates, they're not and were never intended to be.

by gruseom 15y ago

matthewburk 15y ago

Thank you for this. I agree with everything you have said, but have never been able to say it so well.

gnaritas 15y ago

> People always say this, but it's not true in practice. It is true in practice, try talking to programmers who don't know about design patterns and you'll find communication about architecture difficult. Maybe you haven't met enough of these programmers, but there's a shit ton of them in the corporate world. > If there isn't a term for something, you just make one and say what you mean by it. That's what we've always done and it's what programmers not under the influence of "design patterns" always still do. Yes, and it doesn't work well when you don't have a common vocabulary; you spend all your time trying to grok their little custom names for everything. Everything else you said is what happens when people mis-apply patterns and think they're code templates, they're not and were never intended to be.