Patterns are no longer the ‘new kid on the block’. Seven years ago the first Design Patterns book [1] was published. The motivation for pattern authors was, and still is, to transfer design knowledge that has emerged from years of experience. Designers read and use the patterns so as to profit from this experience.  In the past seven years, a strong pattern community has been built, consisting of a number of conferences [2] to discuss the writing and use of patterns.  Pattern authors, pattern teachers and pattern users find peers in the pattern community.

However, not all researchers who are exploiting patterns are included in these groups.  Design patterns are important for reasons beyond capturing information about recurring problems; for instance pattern information can aid reverse engineering tasks, or it can be used to determine useful language improvements or extensions. Currently, research centered on such concepts occurs at the periphery of the pattern community, and hence there has been limited opportunity for researchers interested in other aspects of pattern research to interact with the pattern community. In this workshop we focus on aspects of current patterns beyond the act of transferring design experience.

Patterns have structure in their written representation. The essential properties are at least the description of context, problem, forces, and of course the solution, whereas the solution is, typically, regarded to be the most valuable part. Considering other properties and portions of pattern descriptions, it is obvious that they contain more than solutions to problems.

• Patterns discuss the problem space fully, in a more or less explicit forces section.
• Patterns are often part of a pattern language that deals with a problem space, such as domain specific pattern languages.
• Patterns often provide sample code to describe a proven solution to a recurring problem.
• Patterns reveal deep insight and experience that reaches beyond the solution to a particular problem.

Some examples for “not-intended” uses of patterns might be:

• Good patterns discuss recurring problems and forces in depth. Examining these descriptions suggests shortcomings in programming languages, design methodologies, or in the way software design is taught.
• Understanding the problems as stated by experts in a domain helps finding appropriate solutions that could even make the patterns obsolete.
• The compilation of question catalogues for a special domain from the problem and forces section in patterns might help designers reason about their problems and make better decisions.
• Pattern analysis may help find crosscutting concerns that could be factored out using Advanced Separation of Concerns facilities.
• The concept of patterns could be augmented to help describe design information for new programming paradigms, like those addressing Advanced Separation of Concerns (ASOC).

Workshop Goal

In short, patterns can be used in various ways apart from the obvious ones. Our goal is to diversify and expand the pattern community with these additional views, to find points of collaboration and to share insights about patterns. We would be happy to either identify similar research interests and come up with a shared research agenda; or to find ways how somebody makes use of existing design patterns in stages of the software life cycle other than design. We are open to all proposed ways to use the huge body of experience encoded in pattern form.

Every interested person is invited to apply for attendance by sending a position paper to the organizers. The submission should be one to two pages describing the key ideas of one of the following

• Experiences where a pattern was helpful other than for applying it to your design or process, e.g. by using the problem and forces description to find a more general approach to solve domain specific problems
• Approaches using parts of pattern descriptions for research purposes, e.g. to do research in problem solving strategies
• Research into expanding the applicability of patterns to new programming areas, like ASOC, where patterns could be used to find cross cutting concerns.
• Attempts to use patterns in a wider context than collecting or directly applying them.

The submission should be in pdf, HTML or plain ASCII and is to be sent to christa.schwanninger@mchp.siemens.de. Submissions will be reviewed by the organizers. The authors will be notified about acceptance by September 1st if they have submitted their position paper due to August 31st (EXTENDED DEADLINE). All accepted submissions will be posted on the workshop web site by September 1st (extended to September 16th due to extended deadline).

The number of participants will be limited to 15 to foster a highly interactive workshop.

 

Collectively, the workshop attendees will be asked to agree on a format for the final report, including a plan for each group how to proceed.  After the conference, the workshop results will be compiled to a 10 - 15 page report, which will be published on the workshop’s web site and condensed to a 2-page summary, published at the OOSPLA web site.