From: dave@boostpro.com   
      
   on Mon Dec 17 2012, Francis Glassborow   
    wrote:   
      
   > The deep problem is the whole concept of patterns as being   
   > appropriate for use by inexpert/inexperienced programmers. Books on   
   > patterns should be put on the restricted list, only to be read by   
   > those who have at least reached journeyman status in programming. Of   
   > course publishers would not like that because the sales would be   
   > minuscule :)   
      
   +1.  Even when I was already a reliable and experienced programmer, my   
   discovery of GoF led me to waste several weeks looking for ways to   
   apply the patterns to my existing code.  Inevitably the effect was   
   always going to be decoupling things that didn't need to be decoupled   
   and adding generality where it wasn't needed.  That led me to distrust   
   "design patterns" in general.   
      
   I brought this up with Kevlin Henney one day years ago and he   
   straightened me out by saying that, essentially, you're not *supposed*   
   to "apply" design patterns; you're just supposed to recognize them in   
   existing code.  But what use is that?  I'm still not sure.   
      
   Are design patterns really useful, even to the journeyman?   
      
   --   
   Dave Abrahams   
   BoostPro Computing                  Software Development        Training   
   http://www.boostpro.com             Clang/LLVM/EDG Compilers  C++  Boost   
      
      
         [ See http://www.gotw.ca/resources/clcm.htm for info about ]   
         [ comp.lang.c++.moderated.    First time posters: Do this! ]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)