CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2011/ch7 7d rt

AntiPatterns in Software Development

Introduction

The term antipattern was coined by Andrew Koenig<ref name = koenig/>, in 1995. He was inspired by a story told about Thomas Edison's many failed attempts to find a suitable material for the filament of a light bulb. When asked if he was discouraged, Edison replied that indeed he was not; he now knew hundreds of items that wouldn't work.

Koenig believed that the same philosophy could be applied to software development. As he studied the design patterns presented by the GoF<ref name = gof/>, , he felt that it was just as important to point out what not to do as well as what to do. He named these non-solutions antipatterns. He defined an antipattern as "just like a pattern, except that instead of a solutionit gives something that looks superficially like a solution but isn't one."

References

<references> <ref name = koenig> Koenig, Andrew (March/April 1995). "Patterns and Antipatterns". Journal of Object-Oriented Programming 8 (1): 46–48.; was later re-printed in the: Rising, Linda (1998). The patterns handbook: techniques, strategies, and applications. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. p. 387. </ref> <ref name = gof> Gang of Four </ref> </references>