Dartboard-Driven Design

Lulz James. I'll get right on that (the Wikipedia entry). By the way, I've got to have this dartboard for my cube. It would be an awesome piece of programmer schwag, and kind of a statement on software development as a whole. Make it happen.

I'll put one in the break room next to the Jump to Conclusions Mat.

I vote for the "Beer" design pattern, highlighted in red. Obviously inserted as a nod to yours truly.

awww, why isn't it a flash game? :-(

Nice touch with KISS on the bullseye.

I agree about the bullseye did not see that at first.

You could possibly get in touch with ThinkGeek.com about the dartboard. Don't know if they consider "outside submissions" but there are always places like this which do custom dartboard printing:

http://www.dartboard-magnetic.com/custom-dartboard.html

I would certainly pay to have one of these in my cube.

Design patterns were invented by the Gang of Four. Coplien had nothing to do with it, and Christopher Alexander, who wasn't even a programmer, had zero to do with it. Patterns were mostly a fad of the late 90s, hardly anybody bothers with them anymore.

Just FYI.

@Arnold have you ever actually worked in a software development shop? Your comment is not only factually incorrect, it's lazy. Try actually working as a programmer before you sound off on things you (obviously) know nothing about.

The dartboard is somewhat epic in its geekery so I approve, even though I don't consider myself a patterns sort of guy.

You could also do this with programming languages, operating systems, etc.

Love it.

I didn't even know some of these were patterns. I mean, "guarded suspension"?

I think one area where patterns are really coming into their own is in multiprocessing. Running across multiple cores/processors will foster a whole new wave of patterns, when it finally happens. Of course these patterns will probably be incorporated into the Clojure-esque set of languages that will dominate development once the switch to parallelism is made.

For those who may not be familiar with some of the hidden meanings above:

KISS at the center of the dartboard means:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle/

Also, "Big Ball of Mud" isn't a formal pattern, but it's inclusion here is funny.

http://www.laputan.org/mud/

Great work as usual James. I like these little "filler" posts you do from time to time.

You should probably attribute that Fountainhead quote, as I think this is one not many people today are likely to have read.

Interesting article in the NY Times today (I noticed they linked to your earlier post on coin flipping, how did you manage that?). "The Demise of Form Follows Function".

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/arts/01iht-DESIGN1.html?_r=2

It seems like your poker-related posts are always a lot longer than your classical computer science posts. I'd prefer to see some in-depth discussion of classic computer science issues. Not that I have a problem with the short and sweet posts but it seems like your post length is a little lopsided.

Verbal-masturbation..

Are you building a house, or making something work? Sure a "solid foundation" and all those parallels, and metaphors. But you aren't making something more akin to a watch then you are a house?

I'm all for some sort of organization, but IMHO to much thought on the "how, when, and where" is counter productive. Other things to consider? How easy is it to read and use by others? I hate it when I see 10,000 lines of flowery text in headers, and very little substance? If it's just you coding it (other then coming back and remembering what you did) who give's a $hite?

I'm just saying there are different view points. I'm not advocating full on "cowboy", but then is it really necessary to always design everything to the n'th degree and must you label and try to categorize everything? Coding some small program.. probably not. Coding the software for a bank, for the space shuttle, a kidney machine, then by all means do!

In my experience, the "star" programmer in the company is the guy who can get it done the FASTEST and in a reasonable way the boss/client wanted it. Not the guy sitting to him self, pondering over what "patterns" to use, what the right semantics, what the right labels are, how to abstract everything out ad nauseum; over engineered..

Like Bruce Lee, mine is the way of patterns with out patterns..

Awesome. I agree with the poisoned well comment.

Also, though, there needs to be more emphasis on "Pattern Hatching" (look for posts by Go4 member Vlissides) in the software design community.

The patterns catalogues are a place to start, but maybe your (customer's) problem has a solution that is not an obvious variation on the patterns in the catalogue.

The hark's to your Rand / Roark quote. Then you need to evolve the code to a new or hybrid pattern (i.e. hatch a new one).

And to show how old this line of thought really is:

Marcus Aurelius (philosopher and emperor of Rome 161 - 180 AD): "Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?"

Now someone will find an older quote :-)

'In my experience, the "star" programmer in the company is the guy who can get it done the FASTEST and in a reasonable way the boss/client wanted it.'

Yes, we have a few "stars" like this where I work. The get stuff done really quick, and they are worshipped by management. Pitty the unfortunate sod that has to maintain their code when they get moved on to their next staring role though. Seriously, it is more often that not a bunch of NASTY hacks.

I have the dartboard printed out and on the wall beside my computer. Nice reminder how design patterns are fun water cooler talk, but not the first place to turn.

There is one large issue with the dartboard however, Singleton should also be the white space around the dartboard ;)

One of the reasons why I like visiting your blog so much is because it has become a daily reference I can use pharmacy reviews in order to learn new nice stuff. It's like a curiosities box that surprises you over and over again.