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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 May 2012 14:02:57 -0500
Date: Sun, 20 May 2012 12:03:07 -0700
From: Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
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Subject: Re: How is this "pattern" called?
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On 5/20/2012 11:34 AM, Lew wrote:
...
> The argument is over "patterns" in the GoF sense, a highly
> bureaucratized, overly-verbose and religiously canonical set of labels
> and formats to describe them. But even amidst all the sturm und drang
> over the latter kind of patterns, they provide value in a common
> terminology and informal use. So when we discuss Visitor or Singleton,
> we all know what we mean. ("We" being competent programmers. One
> occasionally sees posters here who are less knowledgeable.)
...

I think the terminology point is very important. Saying "This is a
Singleton class" conveys a lot of information very compactly.

I do flip through GoF when I am looking for ideas of how to structure
something. Often, either one of the patterns fits or at least the idea
behind the pattern is useful to me. It's a useful catalog of alternatives.

Patricia