General talk about software patterns

["Joseph W. Yoder" <joe AT joeyoder.com>]

A lot depends on what is being communicated.  Do "I" as a writer mean 
"we" or "i".  Sometimes "we" weakens it because "I" don't want to take 
responsibility.  Sometimes "we" strengthens it.  Good writing and 
communicating clearly is hard, but rewarding when "we" get it right :-).

Also, for me a lot depends upon my audience.  For example, we had some 
patterns written and presented at our last PLoP that were from Japan.  
You could tell that the writing style was in the form that fit that 
culture.  Now, if that is their intended audience then I would say they 
did a great job.  However, if they want it their patterns to be used and 
real by other cultures, they should consider some changes to the writing 
style.

--joe

On 2/19/2013 10:38 AM, Joseph Bergin wrote:
> Yes, a big problem, but hard to tackle. Shepherding and workshopping do a 
> pretty good job, since many of the participants are from around the world. 
> Perhaps those giving feedback should be sure to mention this when noticed. I 
> just did this while shepherding a paper for guru-plop. In this case it was 
> just the language used, but the advice itself, can be strongly culturally 
> dependent.
>
> One person I know rejected Alexander altogether believing that they were just building 
> "California-Mediteranian architecture."
>
> Joe
>
> On Feb 19, 2013, at 9:30 AM, Christian Köppe wrote:
>
> > I personally think that this is indeed one of the overlooked issues in most 
> > published patterns; they (authors and patterns) assume that they are 
> > culture-independent.
> ---
> Joseph Bergin, Professor Emeritus in Residence
> Pace University, Computer Science, One Pace Plaza, NY NY 10038
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> jbergin AT pace.edu
> HOMEPAGE http://csis.pace.edu/~bergin/
> ---
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--
========
Joseph W. Yoder        
joe AT refactory.com
      http://www.joeyoder.com
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