This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Patterns
Let's take a look at what a pattern is and why it is important. A simple definition that we can start with is this: A pattern is a proven best-practice solution to a known, recurring problem within a given context. This definition still leaves a bit of ambiguity about patterns. There are many best-practice solutions out there that apply to a context but may not be considered to be patterns. To help further refine and expand our understanding of what a pattern is, we can refer to some of the work done by Christopher Alexander. The patterns movement started with his book The Timeless Way of Building. In the book Alexander looks at how we can build better architectures. Although the book addresses civil architecture and not software architecture, its ideas and guidance can be adapted and applied to software. In a subsequent book, titled A Pattern Language, Alexander states that a pattern
- . . . describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice.5
At this point we are starting to get a more precise definition. A key idea that surfaces from Alexander's statement is that a pattern can be used many times. However, when applying it, we can adapt it so that it suits the needs of a particular situation. Although we may use the pattern multiple times, each instance of the pattern is unique.
Building on this definition, we can add a few ideas provided by John Vlissides.6 He points out that a pattern needs to support teaching and have a name. In this way we can refer to the entire pattern by just its name and still convey meaning. The detail provided with the pattern can also be used to teach the pattern user about the best practices associated with the pattern, when to use the pattern, and the implications of doing so.
In the software world, the most-referenced book on patterns is Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software written by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides—known as the Gang of Four (GoF).7 This book contains 23 design patterns that are widely used and referenced, including patterns such as Abstract Factory, Bridge, and Observer. These patterns and others are often embedded within the frameworks that we depend upon for building our solutions, like the Model-View-Controller pattern, which is the basis of Struts and JSF. Odds are that we've already been using patterns in our projects.