9.8 Where Is It All Going?

9.8 Where Is It All Going?

Peter Coad's 1992 Communications of the ACM article ended on a note that is still very appropriate today, by identifying work that still needs to be done to make patterns truly useful:

This article is only a very small beginning of the work to be done on investigating, finding, and applying object-oriented patterns. Additional investigation is needed on pattern discovery and usage. Given a large number of OOA and OOD results, can one apply a systematic approach to discovering and cataloging patterns? Is there a hierarchy of patterns How does one look at examples and derive guidelines for best usage? What strategies can be used for connecting one pattern to another? When does the occurrence of one pattern imply the need for another companion pattern? (152-159)

And Jim Coplien insists that patterns are going to be about something more than object-oriented design, perhaps as a critical element for avoiding the potential rigidities inherent in a modularized, component approach to systems:

[Objects] happened to be the predominate worldview when patterns took root. I believe patterns took root in the face of complexity. Objects may have aided the rise of patterns just because they're so antithetical to patterns, and underscore the need for something like patterns. Alexander himself underscored the danger of building from pre-manufactured parts. Patterns offer a broader view of software, helping us think about software at the system level, the architectural level. I think there's a strong future there. But it will be a folk development that will blossom of its own accord, and best be left to its own maturation without too much conscious direction or tampering. (Coplien 1997)

Ironically, the future of patterns may be shaped by the very trends abjured by the patterns community. Currently, the shifting sands of software development fashion favor components over objects. The baton of the silver bullet has been passed on, from essentially handcrafted objects to a form of industrial development that is off-the-shelf. The coming of e-commerce, the Internet, other networks, and the millennium have ramped up the issue of complexity- management. So, although patterns may now be seen as the putative salvation of objects, perhaps soon they will be saving "componentware" development from itself.

Regardless of what else they help happen, patterns have become established as a part of the future of software development. Their real benefit may be realized some time in the future when they help to mature a noticeably immature craft:

Alexander's pattern language contains over 250 patterns, organized from high level to low level. The goal in documenting patterns that exist in software architectures is to arrive at a similar system, but this will take time. (Berczuk 1994)



A UML Pattern Language
A UML Pattern Language (Software Engineering)
ISBN: 157870118X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 100
Authors: Paul Evitts

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