Post Oopsla Tampa Event Group Three

The issues:

• Patterns are not enough; we really need good quality pattern languages
• PLoPs are good for producing reasonable numbers of OK quality patterns, but that's as far as it goes.
• PLoPs only address the middle of the Pattern lifecycle: from initial write-up to a write-up in decent pattern form. (The "mining" phase)
• There is no process for identifying and confirming patterns (from "proto-patterns; the "prospecting" phase)
• There is no process for collecting, organizing, aggregating and synthesizing the patterns into pattern languages. (The "refining" phase)
• There is no process for improving the quality of the patterns once workshopped at PLoP. (The "jewellery production" phase)
• While a few book authors are collecting patterns and publishing them in pattern language form, the time-pressures related to writing a book are not supportive of producing good quality pattern languages.

• Hillside could sponsor Pattern Language Workshops. These would be domain-specific (e.g. Test Automation Patterns Workshop) and would get together experts in the domain to sift through existing patterns, organize them into languages, identify holes and overlaps and to rewrite the patterns as necessary to fit them into a high-quality pattern language that captures the best practices in the domain.
• The workshops could be funded by opening them up to the Corporate World who could send people who want to learn about the domain from "leading experts in the field". The participants would pay a course-like price for the privelige; the fees collected would be used to subsidize the participants and even pay them an honorarium for their time.

Other members of this group are encouraged to add their "2 bits worth".