The Creation of a Pattern Language Should Be the Work of a Community. We Agree with Christopher

Last update: April 7, 2004

Acknowledgements

The creation of a pattern language should be the work of a community. We agree with Christopher Alexander who states, “many of the people who read, and use this language, will try to improve these patterns—will put their energy to work, in this task of finding more true, more profound invariants—and we hope that gradually these more true patterns, which are slowly discovered, as times goes on, will enter a common language, which all of us can share.”

Many people have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the development of this language. These include the pattern originators, the “shepherds” who helped us improve our work at the Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP) conferences, those who attended the writers’ workshops, and the countless others who have provided feedback and ideas for improving the patterns. This book would not have happened without their contribution, and we’d like to do our best to thank everyone. But since there were so many, we know we are at risk of leaving someone out.

First and foremost, the originators of the patterns (except for the text authors, of course):

Jon Collins, Champion Skeptic

Rachel Davies, Shoulder to Cry On

David DeLano, Brown Bag, Do Food, Early Adopter (formerly Grass Roots), Gone to Maui (which became part of Location, Location, Location), Token (formerly Trinket)

Frances Evans, Gold Mine (which became part of Just Do It)

Daniel Gackle, Test Drive

Jeff Garland, Just Do It

Kevlin Henney, Location, Location, Location

Chuck Hill, Test the Waters,

Lise Hvatum, Corridor Politics

Brian Marick, Spotlight on Others (which became part of Involve Everyone)

Jim and Michelle McCarthy, Ask for Help

Clive Menhinick, Piggyback

Steven E. Newton, Smell of Success

Peter Sommerlad, External Validation (originally called Bread Upon the Waters)

Carol Stimmel, In Your Space

Tadahiro Uehara, Just Do It

Rob Westgeest, Fear Less

Junichi Yamamoto, Mentor

Rieko Yamamoto, Just Do It

The EuroPLoP 2000 Focus Group on Introducing Patterns into Organizations: Gerhard Ackermann, Frances Evans, Peter Gassmann, Jan de Groot, Pavel Hruby, Klaus Marquardt, Amir Raveh, Maks Romih, Didi Schuetz, Alberto Silva, Amy Strucko, Oliver Vogel, with special thanks to Amir Raveh for capturing the pattern, e-Forum.

The authors of the experience reports: John Crupi, Edward Katz, and Jack Watson.

The countless number of people who provided “known uses” for the individual patterns.

The members of the OOPSLA '96 workshop on Introducing Patterns into the Workplace, October 1996: David DeLano, Dan Rawsthorne, Clenio F. Salviano, Peter Sommerlad, Junichi Yamamoto, Rieko Yamamoto, representing co-authors: T. Uehara, Y. Nakayama, Y. Yoshida.

Ken Auer, shepherd for PLoP '97 and the members of the PLoP '97 workshop, September 1997: Brad Appleton, Mike Beedle, Charles Crowley, David DeLano, Dave Dikel, David Kane, Don Olson, Bill Opdyke.

David DeLano, shepherd for PLoP '99 and the members of the PLoP '99 workshop, August 1999: Eduardo Fernandez, Xiaohong Yuan, Martin Fontaine, Dwight Duego, Nathalie Gaertner, Bernard Thirion, Dorin Sandu.

The participants of the ChiliPLoP 2000 hot topic, March 2000: John Letourneau, Ross McKegney, Don Olson, Carol Stimmel.

Jim Coplien, shepherd for EuroPLoP 2000 and the members of the EuroPLoP2000 workshop, July 2000: Joe Bergin, Diethelm Bienhaus, Jane Chandler, Martine Devos, Jutta Eckstein, Julio Garcia-Martin, Christoph Steindl, Markus Volter.

The members of the OOPSLA 2000 workshop on Introducing Patterns (or any new idea) into Organizations, October 2000: David DeLano, Lucio Dinoto, Frances Evans, Jeff Garland, Neil Harrison, Bill Opdyke, Amy Strucko, Rieko Yamamoto.

The OT 2001 workshop participants.

Brian Marick, shepherd for PLoP 2001, who encouraged us to add an opening story to each pattern.

David Kane, shepherd for EuroPLoP 2002 and the members of the EuroPLoP 2002 workshop.

Laurie Williams and Robert Kessler, for providing External Validation for our patterns by referencing them in their book, Pair Programming Illuminated.

Joe Bergin, for providing External Validation for our patterns by using them in his course at Pace University.

Thanks to Shawn Dagley, whose comment sparked the idea for the pattern Tailor Made.

Thanks to Russ Stinehour for the additional inspiration for this pattern.

Jutta Eckstein, for spending a lot of time on the beach studying our patterns and providing a lot of valuable feedback!

Lise Hvatum, for teaching us that these patterns could even be applied by an Evangelist who was also a manager!

Torsten Holmer, for being amazingly enthusiastic over an early draft of the patterns.

Alan O’Callaghan, for his unwavering support and his invaluable help with some of our conference sessions and for some editorial help as we got close to the deadline.

Tammy Huffman, for reading and commenting on the almost-final draft of the book.

Cindy Reagan for proofreading the patterns.

Fred Grossman, for suggesting the format for the title of this book.

John Neidhart and Jennifer Blackwell at Addison-Wesley (Prentice-Hall?), whose invaluable suggestions help make this book a finished product we are both proud to have written.

Linda’s biggest Local Sponsor, her husband, Karl Rehmer.

And last, but certainly not least, for the countless people who kept telling us they couldn’t wait until the book came out – here it is!