Refactoring to Patterns

Chapter 1. Why I Wrote This Book

The great thing about software patterns is that they convey many useful design ideas. It follows, therefore, that if you learn a bunch of these patterns, you’ll be a pretty good software designer, right? I considered myself just that once I’d learned and used dozens of patterns. They helped me develop flexible frameworks and build robust and extensible software systems. After a couple of years, however, I discovered that my knowledge of patterns and the way I used them frequently led me to over-engineer my work.

Once my design skills had improved, I found myself using patterns in a different way: I began refactoring to, towards, and away from patterns, instead of using them for up-front design or introducing ...