Pattern Oriented Software Architecture Volume 5: On Patterns and Pattern Languages

Guide to the Reader

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles.“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely,“and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

This book is structured and written so that the most convenient way to read it is from cover to cover. If you know where you want to go, however, you can choose your own route through the book. In this case, the following hints can help you decide which topics to focus on and the order in which to read them.

A Short Story about Patterns

This book provides an in-depth exploration of the pattern concept. Starting with a popular—yet brief and incomplete—pattern definition, we first motivate, examine, and develop the inherent properties of stand-alone patterns. A solid understanding of what a stand-alone pattern is—and what it is not—helps when applying individual patterns effectively in software development.

We next explore the space ‘between’ patterns. Patterns are fond of company and can connect to one another through a variety of relationships: they can form alternatives to one another, or natural complements, or define a specific arrangement that is applied wholesale. Patterns can also line up in specific sequences that, when applied, generate and inform the architectures of concrete software systems. Knowing about and understanding the multifaceted relationships that can exist between patterns supports the effective ...