what's up with 'patterns'?

[Mark McEahern]

> i've seen several topics referring to 'patterns'.
>
> i am unfamiliar with this. could someone explaint to me what this is all
> about?

On one level, you can just take the term at face value.  That is, look the
term up in the dictionary and apply its meaning(s) to software engineering:

  A consistent, characteristic form, style, or method.

People have observed patterns in good software engineering and they have
given these patterns names so that they can be studied and emulated.

You'll hear people refer to the GoF, or gang of four.  These are the folks
who wrote the seminal Design Patterns book:

  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201633612/

There's the Portland Pattern Repository:

  http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PortlandPatternRepository

which can be disconcerting to the newcomer, but has lots of good nuggets
about patterns.

Oh well, I'm sure if you a bit on google, you'll find more than you'd ever
want to know about patterns in python:

  http://www.google.com/search?q=patterns+python

Cheers,

// mark

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