Discovering Patterns: An Industry Report

Design patterns are a relatively new topic of study in software engineering. As such, the ideas have yet to make a widespread transfer to industry. What may help are some early success stories that will complement the intuitively appealing idea of patterns, and provide more incentive for the skeptical, time-pressed, practising software engineer to explore them.

This paper describes one such successful introduction of patterns into a real development project, and the ways in which they are affecting the ongoing course of the work. Some background material on the company and the project is given to provide context, followed by a discussion of how patterns were introduced to the project and which patterns were found to be especially useful. Along the way, observations about the nature and use of patterns are offered for further consideration.