My Work on Patterns

Introduction

Most of the work in the patterns community documents advanced techniques in software architecture, design, and implementation. But we can also use the pattern form to document the more fundamental patterns that underlie our advanced techniques.

I have been working on patterns at both levels, with a great interest in patterns that appear in intelligent systems. I have also begun to dabble in writing so-called pedagogical patterns, that is patterns of best practice in teaching and learning.

This page provides an index to my patterns, with some organizational indication of the level of sophistication that they require. I would be happy to hear of related patterns that you have written.

Functional Programming Patterns

My most recent patterns work has been to study functional programming patterns.

Elementary Patterns

My Elementary Patterns page serves as a community resource for those interested in the use of patterns to document low-level patterns of programming and to teach novices. It grew out of a Hot Topic workshop at ChiliPLoP'98. Much of my recent work on patterns is linked from that page.

Higher-Level Design Patterns

So far, my high-level design patterns have drawn from my experience working with the Generic Task approach to knowledge-based systems. I learned about Generic Tasks, pioneered by Chandrasekaran, as a graduate student at Michigan State University under Jon Sticklen.

• Sponsor-Selector, a pattern of resource selection. This paper appears as Chapter 5 in Pattern Languages of Program Design, Volume 3, from Addison-Wesley.


• Structured Matcher, a pattern for organizing systems that do pattern matching. This paper appeared at PLoP-98.

Lower-Level Design Patterns

• Speak the Problem's Language is a raw pattern, at this point just an idea drafted in pattern form. A more complete write-up is forthcoming.

Programming Patterns

• Envoy, a pattern language for managing state in a functional program by simulating OOP with closures. This paper appeared at PLoP-99.


• Roundabout, a pattern language for writing recursive programs. An earlier version of this paper appeared at PLoP-97.


• Loop Patterns, co-authored with Owen Astrachan, which is the beginning of a pattern language for writing loops. This paper appeared at PLoP-98.


• Patterns for Comparing Recursive Structures, three patlets that can be used when checking the equality of recursive structures.

Pedagogoical Patterns

I wrote Built in Failure for the Pedagogical Patterns project, which is documenting a set of pedagogical pattern languages. These patterns are part of a paper that will be workshopped at EuroPLoP 2001.

Other Peoples' Patterns

I have found that many of Kent Beck's patterns in his book Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns are suitable for consumption by novices, or almost so. I have found the following of his patterns on-line:

• Temporary Variables
• Code Formatting
• Early Development
• User Interface