Discussion Pattern Cousins

Patterns are a way of capturing knowledge, usually knowledge in the form of expertise or rules of thumb. Other useful forms of capturing expertise are:

discussions (newsgroup threads, compuserve forums)
faqs (frequently asked questions)
cookbooks (e.g. Parcplace Visualworks cookbook)

I had the great honor to spend some time with PatHoyIii (that's Pat Hoy III in Wiki-ese). He turned me on to metaphors, something I discovered I really didn't understand before, and which I understand a little bit better now.

He believes that the key goal of a piece of literature is to help the reader re-live the experience that caused the author to learn something.

I believe patterns do that. They encode the misfits of tried and untrue solutions (in the forces), and they are concrete enough that they appeal to the experiential side of our reasoning.

In that sense, a PatternIsaStory?, much more than it is a guide, a manual page, discussion, FAQ, or decision tree. They are decidedly NOT cookbooks. All those things capture knowledge. PatternsCaptureExperience?.

If a PatternIsaStory?, then a PatternLanguage generates the culture that emanates from any mythology. Patterns are the mythologems of a problem-solving culture. I think this is closely knit with generativity: a PatternLanguage causes an impression or experience to develop and grow in the mind of the reader, rather than just planting a "fact." ("There is no such thing as a fact." -- Deming)

-- JimCoplien 30 Aug 1996

EditText of this page (last edited January 31, 2005)
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