Learning JavaScript Design Patterns

Chapter 6. Anti-Patterns

If we consider that a pattern represents a best practice, an anti-pattern represents a lesson that has been learned. The term anti-patterns was coined in 1995 by Andrew Koenig in the November C++ Report that year, inspired by the GoF’s book Design Patterns. In Koenig’s report, there are two notions of anti-patterns that are presented. Anti-patterns:

• Describe a bad solution to a particular problem that resulted in a bad situation occurring

• Describe how to get out of said situation and how to go from there to a good solution

On this topic, Alexander writes about the difficulties in achieving a good balance between good design structure and good context:

These notes are about the process of design; the process of inventing physical things which display a new physical order, organization, form, in response to function.…every design problem begins with an effort to achieve fitness between two entities: the form in question and its context. The form is the solution to the problem; the context defines the problem.

While it’s quite important to be aware of design patterns, it can be equally important to understand anti-patterns. Let us qualify the reason behind this. When creating an application, a project’s lifecycle begins with construction; however, once you have the initial release, it needs to be maintained. The quality of a final solution will either be good or bad, depending on the level of skill and time the team has invested in it. Here, good and bad are considered ...