General talk about software patterns

[Linda Rising <risingl1 AT cox.net>]

You might find that just a handful of patterns can help you make
significant improvements. A little information hiding here and a single,
focussed design decision there....

Good luck!



Linda



Ralph Malph wrote:

Thanks, Linda.

That describes me exactly.  I am working on a quite
large embedded system that was written by "senior"
engineers at a research facility with minimal if any
training in modern software design techniques.  The
software is a mess, and I'm starting to look at
patterns as a way to restructure it.  The entire code
base is written in C++ without dynamic memory
allocation, and from my initial pass through parts of
the GoF book, it looked like dynamic memory allocation
would be a requirement for using design patterns. 
I'll take a closer look at them.

Andre

--- Linda Rising <risingl1 AT cox.net> wrote:
  

Hi Ralph,

Just my opinion follows, but I think that somehow a
lot of folks got the
wrong idea about patterns because the GoF book (love
all those authors!)
just included examples in C++ and Smalltalk.

Some of those folks (who got the wrong idea) were in
the development
community I knew best -- large, safety-critical,
real-time, embedded, 
systems.
Those folks took one look at the GoF book and said,
"Nothing in here for 
me!"
and dismissed it out of hand. This was unfortunate.

A design pattern has nothing to do with dynamic
memory allocation. Sure,
many examples or implementations show this, but, for
example, you can use
a Mediator in FORTRAN!!

Don't give up on design patterns, Ralph! They're an
attempt on the part of
well-meaning designers to share the best they know.
We can all benefit 
regardless
of our particular environment.




Linda



Ralph Malph wrote:

    

Hello all, looking at archives I'm not sure how
"alive" this list is, but someone out there might
      

be
    

listening.

I'm interested in people's opinions as to whether
design patterns would be useful if you could not
dynamically allocate memory.  

I am new to patterns and find them quite
      

interesting. 
    

I am considering putting in some effort to
      

comprehend
    

them, but my projects at work include embedded
safety-critical real-time systems, and one of the
things that we do not use is dynamic memory
allocation.

If anyone has an opinion as to whether I should
      

delve
    

into patterns for this type of software (i.e. you
      

have
    

considered doing them and/or done them in similar
systems before) I'd be interested to hear it.

Thanks!


		
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-- 
Author of "Fearless Change: patterns for introducing
new ideas"
http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/intropatterns.html




    

		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ 

  

-- 
Author of "Fearless Change: patterns for introducing new ideas"
http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/intropatterns.html