Patterns for Parallel Software Design

1.1. 1.1 The Concept of a Software Pattern

Current interest in software patterns was originally inspired by the work of the British architect Christopher Alexander and his colleagues [AIS+77] [Ale79]. Alexander was the first to describe what he called a pattern language, which mapped various problems in building architecture to proven solutions. In Alexander's terms, a pattern is 'a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution' [Ale79].

Since the mid-1990s, pattern-based design has been adapted for use by the software development community. The resulting software patterns are literary forms that describe recurring designs used in software development. They have been used extensively in the development of object-oriented systems, and have been highly effective in capturing, transferring and applying design knowledge at different levels of software design [Ram98]. In general, patterns exist in any context in which there are design decisions to be made.

Software patterns focus on capturing and systematizing successful experience and techniques used in previous software development. They describe successful solutions to common software problems with the intention of creating handbooks of good design and programming practices for software development. Their long term goal is to gather design experience and techniques for software development. Even though much work remains before that goal is reached, two decades of applying pattern-oriented ...