Industrial experience with design patterns

A design pattern is a particular prose form of recording design information such that designs which have worked well in the past can be applied again in similar situations in the future. The availability of a collection of design patterns can help both the experienced and the novice designer recognize situations in which design reuse could or should occur. We have found that design patterns: 1) provide an effective "shorthand" for communicating complex concepts effectively between designers, 2) can be used to record and encourage the reuse of "best practices", 3) capture the essential parts of a design in compact form, e.g. for documentation of existing software architectures. Since the patterns community is one that shares information in an open forum and builds on the experiences of others, we chose to submit a joint paper on our industrial experiences with patterns. We focus on the lessons learned in our respective industrial settings as a first step towards answering the questions "Patterns sound very promising, but how are they actually used in the industry and what benefits, if any, do they bring in practice?" We proceed by briefly describing each of our respective experiences with patterns. This is followed by a joint "lessons learned" section and conclusion.