Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Chapter 6. Conclusion

It’s possible to argue that this book hasn’t accomplished much. After all, it doesn’t present any algorithms or programming techniques that haven’t been used before. It doesn’t give a rigorous method for designing systems, nor does it develop a new theory of design—it just documents existing designs. You could conclude that it makes a reasonable tutorial, perhaps, but it certainly can’t offer much to an experienced object-oriented designer.

We hope you think differently. Cataloging design patterns is important. It gives us standard names and definitions for the techniques we use. If we don’t study design patterns in software, we won’t be able to improve them, and it’ll be harder to come up with new ones.

This book is only ...