Single Patterns Criteria Summary

Presenting a pattern
  • Consider using a known form before using your own presentation form.
  • If you are using your own form, make sure that your readers will understand it and don't get lost.
  • Experimentation with form is encouraged, but should be done wisely and with much reflection.
  • You can both use a bullet by bullet style or a more discursive one. Several participants of the discussion, though, admired the discursive nature of Christoper Alexander's presentation of patterns.

Proving it's a pattern
  • A pattern description should contain at least three known uses, preferably from different unrelated projects. This is considered important, since otherwise a pattern cannot be distinguished from a clever design which has yet to be proved to be a recurring pattern. Consider Jerry Weinberg: "Once is an event; twice is a coincidence; three times is a pattern."

Discussing related patterns
  • Discuss similar patterns and distinguish your pattern from them. Try to show that your pattern(s) are not just a minor variation.
  • Discuss related patterns which make sense to be used in the context of your pattern application (just like the Related Patterns section in the Design Patterns book).

 

Last edited June 28, 1996
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