General talk about software patterns

["Desilets, Alain" <Alain.Desilets AT nrc-cnrc.gc.ca>]

Hello all,

 

This is my very first posting on this list (in fact, I haven’t even read the archives yet, so sorry if my question is already in a FAQ somewhere... if so, just point me to the FAQ).

 

I need some advice on how to organize and run a successful patterns workshop. This is in the context of an event that I am planning for June 2011, where I hope to bring together practitioners in the field of Collaborative, Community and Crowdsourced Translation (CT3 for short) and get them to capture the do’s and dont’s they have learned about this new field, in the form of patterns and anti-patterns. I don’t expect any of those people to be familiar with the concept of Design Patterns. Also, I am expecting a mix of 25% of practitioners who have experience with CT3, and 75% of practitioners who have experience with more conventional translation processes, but are highly interested in figuring out how to use CT3 (and may have read some literature and case studies on the topic).

 

While I am quite familiar with patterns as a reader, I have never participated in a write workshop, let alone organized and run one, so I definitely need some help. What are the common do’s and dont’s for organizing and running such a workshop? I presume there is a pattern language somewhere that captures that? I so, where can I find it (I looked around but couldn’t find one).

 

I did find a couple of description of how Writer workshops work. For example:

 

http://www.hillside.net/plop/2011/index.php?nav=activities#writersworkshops

 

I have to admit that this is a bit more formal and less collaborative than what I had envisaged. I was picturing something a bit more like a wiki BarnRaising, where people would rapidly generate a list of patterns and collaboratively improve them in a wiki-fashion:

 

http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/BarnRaising

 

Have pattern writing workshops been held in that fashion also? And if so, what are the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches?

 

Thanks

 

 

Alain Désilets

Agent de recherche | Research Officer

Institut de technologie de l'information | Institute for Information Technology

Conseil national de recherches du Canada | National Research Council of Canada