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Re: [patterns-discussion] Which patterns are more frequently used?


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Linda Rising <risingl1 AT cox.net>
  • To: Jan Hannemann <jan AT cs.ubc.ca>
  • Cc: patterns-discussion AT cs.uiuc.edu
  • Subject: Re: [patterns-discussion] Which patterns are more frequently used?
  • Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 16:16:36 -0700
  • List-archive: <http://mail.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/patterns-discussion>
  • List-id: General talk about software patterns <patterns-discussion.cs.uiuc.edu>

Hi Jan,

When I was working on the Pattern Almanac, I included references to what I called "experience
reports" to show pattern users examples of real-world applications in various domains. Although
the almanac was published in 2000, I'm pretty sure that the heavily used patterns are still the favorites.

Unfortunately, I can't find that list, however, it could be re-created easily by going through the almanac
and noting which experience papers reference which patterns.

I would be very surprised to see Visitor on the top 10 :-)!




Linda



Jan Hannemann wrote:

I'm wondering which patterns are actually used more frequently than others
in practice(*). In particular, I'd like to know which the top-5 (or top-10)
Gang-of-Four patterns(**) are in terms of number of pattern instances found
in practice. I do realize that this is hard to determine objectively, but
subjective rankings are fine, too.

For example, I think it is pretty clear that Interpreter is less commonly
used in practice than, say, Observer.
Are there by chance even research papers on this topic available? Or on
related topics (empirical study of patterns in the wild)?

Opinions are welcome as well. A few years back I spoke to one of the authors
of the GoF book and he gave me this informal list of what he thought were
the top-9 according to his experience (most commonly used on top):

Observer
Composite
Singleton
Abstract Factory
Visitor
Adapter
Factory Method
Template Method
Command

Can you confirm this list, or do you have different experiences with
patterns used in practice?

Thanks!

--Jan


PS: To provide some context: my research involves design patterns (in
particular, the GoF patterns) and I want to make sure I focus on patterns
that are actually used in software development.

(*) With "in practice" I mean "in real-word software systems". (**) I'm only interested in the GoF patterns.

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--
Author of "Fearless Change: patterns for introducing new ideas"
http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/intropatterns.html







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