Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Volume 1, A System of Patterns

Chapter 8

Where Will Patterns Go?

These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before…

Star Trek: The Original Series © Paramount Pictures 1966–1968

 

At the time that this book is being written, patterns are in the forefront of everybody’s mind. People speak enthusiastically about patterns and the benefits they will bring to software development. But where will patterns go? What are the directions for future research?

This chapter describes our view of the future of patterns.

8.1 Pattern-Mining

Although a lot of patterns are already available, of all scales and degrees of abstraction and for many domains, mining new patterns will remain an important activity for the future.

Patterns for Software Architecture

Several specific areas of software, such as object-oriented design in general, user interface programming and distributed computing, are well described by a variety of different patterns. Other areas, however, are not yet covered by patterns, or by only a few patterns. Examples include security and transaction-processing systems, parallel and scientific computing and fault tolerance. Filling these blank spots will be an important activity in the future.

Considering patterns as a mental tool, some experienced developers suggest first looking at patterns that do not fit directly into the domain of the application under design. Sometimes it ...