Focus groups and tutorials

Focus group on Christopher Alexander
Led by Richard Gabriel

Christopher Alexander stands somewhere in our field of software patterns: Is he at the center, is he an inspiration, is he a nuisance — what is he to us? We can answer these questions only by looking at what he did and what he believes on one hand, and what we do and what we believe on the other. In this focus group, I will bring a plethora of materials ranging from explanations of his work through the most recent critiques of it. You will bring your experiences, knowledge, and sharp minds ready to see what we think of him.

We will look at the following works: The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, The Oregon Experiment, A City is Not a Tree, The Perfection of Imperfection, The Nature of Order, and the recent critique of A Pattern Language, published in the Harvard Design Review last Winter.

Though his books are perennial bestsellers, they rarely are studied by architects nor are they taught. Hobbyists, builders, and contractors use them, but almost no working architects.

In Alexander's work we find a fascination with the question of what is beauty and how can it be made. This question turns into one of aliveness and wholeness, and in his latest work it is clearly a spiritual quest. Patterns sit at the center of his ideas, conveying nuggets of design and building wisdom as well as insight into what makes things beautiful and livable. But questions linger: Are his views too primitive, too romantic, too naive, too structuralist, too authoritarian, too unstudied, too inconsistent, and, ultimately, too irrelevant for us.

And finally, we'll look at what we need and want from patterns; how do they fit into our working and scientific lives.

Tutorial for first-time PLoP conference participants
Led by Neil Harrison

A general outline of the topics is as follows:

1. Patterns vocabulary and Primer
   (e.g. "What's a QWAN?", "What does Gush mean?", "Why does his pattern look different from mine?")
   
2. A quick overview of PLoP history
   (with an introduction to that "shadowy cabal", The Hillside Group)
   
3. A review of the PLoP schedule with special considerations to the responsibilities of writer's workshop participants
   
4. A discussion of what to do with your patterns after PLoP
   (I'll recycle my presentation from PLoP 2000 on this one)
   
5. Q&A

Writers' workshops & Download papers

Writers' workshop 1
download papers for this workshop

Patterns for the Practicing Software Architect
Klaus Marquardt

A Software Metric Pattern Dialect
Martin Auer

Business Relationships
Pavel Hruby

Model REAL world
Jesper Kiehn

A First Approach to Design Web Sites by Using Patterns
F. Montero, M. Lozano, P. González

Design Patterns for Evolutionary Robotics
Esben H. Østergård

Writers' workshop 2
download papers for this workshop

Patterns for Building a Beautiful Company
Linda Rising, Caroline King, Daniel May, Steve Sanchez

Agile Environments - Some Patterns for Agile Software Development Facilitation
Klaus Marius Hansen

Corncob Related Antipatterns
Met-Mari Nielsen

Patterns of Use Cases
Gertrud Bjørnvig

A Procedure for an Automated Finding of the Right Patterns for Usability Evaluations
Michael Gellner

Patterns for conducting a successful niche conference
Cecilia Haskins

Writers' Workshop 3
download papers for this workshop

Methods for States
Kevlin Henney

Using watchdog timers to improve the realibility of TTCS embedded systems: Seven new patterns and a case study
Michael J. Pont, Royan H.L.Ong

Object-Oriented Remoting: A Pattern Language
Markus Voelter, Uwe Zdun, Michale Kircher

Executor Pattern
Eric Crahen

Framework Patterns for the Evolution of Non-Stopping Software Systems
Walter Cazzola, James O. Coplien, Ahmed Ghoneim, Gunter Saake

Transformational Pattern for High-Level-Architectural Connectors
Lars Grunske

Download papers for all workshops

Participant list

First name

Last name

Organisation

Mikio

Aoyama

Nanzan University

Martin

Auer

Vienna University of Technology

Gertrud

Bjørnvig

Microsoft Business Solutions, Navision a/s

Walter

Cazzola

DISI - University of Genova

Erik

Corry

Terry

Fujino

Inarcadia

Richard

Gabriel

Sun Microsystems Inc/Hillside USA

Michael

Gellner

University of Rostock

Lars

Grunske

HPI

Klaus Marius

Hansen

University of Aarhus

Neil

Harrison

Avaya

Cecilia

Haskins

NITH - the Norwegian School of Information Technology

Kevlin

Henney

Curbralan Limited

Pavel

Hruby

Navision

Jesper

Kiehn

Microsoft Business Solutions

Therese

Lundgren-May

Klaus

Marquardt

Daniel

May

The Maersk Institute

Hedin

Meitil

Mærsk Data A/S

Francisco

Montero

Escuela Politécnica Superior de Albacete

Takako

Nakatani

S-Lagoon, Co.,Ltd.

Met-Mari

Nielsen

DAIMI (datalogisk institut, Århus universitet)

Elly

Nkya

Navison a/s

Esben

Ostergaard

The Maersk Institute

Juha

Pärssinen

VTT Information Technology

George

Platts

Viking PLoP Creativity Consulting

Michael

Pont

University of Leicester

Rebecca

Rikner

Linda

Rising

Kristian Elof

Sørensen

Miika

Tuisku

HIP @ CERN

Aino

Vonge Corry

JAOO Academy

Petra

Ziegler