Beyond the Hype: Do Patterns and Frameworks Reduce Discovery Costs? (Panel)

Abstract

Patterns and frameworks are two approaches to the development of both new and evolving software systems. An implicit hypothesis is that are reduced by leveraging knowledge previously collected, analyzed, organized, and packaged. Discovery (or getting started costs) include both the costs of understanding the problem to be solved and the cost of understanding the tools, methods, existing software, etc. For large, multi-year development projects in industries such as defense or telecommunications, discovery costs can dominate the overall cost (and risk) of software development.This panel will share its experience and perspectives with the audience with a discussion initiated by the following questions:• Have patterns and frameworks really delivered on their claims for reducing discovery costs? Can current best-practices be characterized as meaningful or marginal (what are the measures)?• What are the discovery cost factors where frameworks and patterns appear to deliver the biggest bang for the buck?• While mature pattern languages and frameworks may reduce the learning curve, they do not, eliminate it. How much of a learning curve is required to develop a sufficient shared context with the authors of a set of patterns or a framework?