Comment Re:The biggest problem with design patterns... (Score 1) 129
The biggest problem with design patterns is that they codify repeated constructs.
And, since we are teaching developers that repeating these constructs by rote is "the right thing to do", there is less call to actually push the problem to where it belongs...
The language implementation itself.
If you keep repeating "Factory", "Observer" (whatever), then why wouldn't you want something that can actually represent the concept?
Reducing the concepts into a (hopefully) smaller set should make this more directly implementable. Or, at least provide the building blocks to permit direct Pattern implementation is a library sense. (although, I have not read the book, nor the thesis, just going by the summary here).
But, I agree with you. Cutting edge development must take place in uncharted areas, and the use of patterns is "known space". It should be really known space, though, in that the Patterns must be subsumed (like subroutines and I/O libraries). Stressing about Patterns all the time will be... (or should be) wasteful.
Peter Norvig wrote an interesting article about this:
http://www.norvig.com/design-patterns/
(http://norvig.com/bio.html)
In the article, he shows how 16 of 24 GoF patterns simply disappear, or become considerably less relevant by proper language support.
However, if the programming community at large insists on weaker languages, we may need to take smaller steps, and the book being reviewed may be a useful step in that direction.