Apprenticeship Patterns

Foreword

Ward Cunningham

Twenty-five years ago Kent Beck and I sat in Tektronix’s Technical Center cafeteria wondering what impact our privileged access to Smalltalk-80 would have on the world.

Never mind reality, I advised Kent. If we could do anything, what would we do with this knowledge?

“I want to change the way people think about programming,” Kent said. I agreed. We both wanted to reverse what we thought had been a wrong turn in the progress of our industry. And, amazingly, we did it.

That device I used back in the cafeteria—the “never mind reality” part—was a pattern that I’d first observed used by my college advisor. He tried it on me just like I used it on Kent. The activity, which I now recognize as a pattern, helped Kent and me dare to imagine far-off goals that might otherwise have seemed audacious. And once imagined, our goals looked more achievable.

I call the thought device a pattern because it solves a problem that we often have: we censor our own ambitions. This book is full of similar devices for a wide range of problems. We say that patterns solve problems. “Never mind reality” solved a problem for Kent and me. It got us thinking big thoughts that stuck with us and let us push through our habitual self-censorship.

You’ve probably tried the “never mind reality” pattern yourself. If you haven’t, give it a try. The strongest patterns are the ones that are applied productively over and over again. Patterns don’t have to be new to be useful. In fact, it’s better if they ...