alt Hacker NewsYou point out the cultural issue that this creates and sweep it under the rug, violently.
The thought model complicates the process of writing new code, "what pattern do i need here?" and the perception of existing code, "oh this is pattern X, why isn't that communicated clearly?". The truth is that design patterns are at best stagnant in quality and quantity over time (GoF is over 30 years old!), but the quantity and quality of problems is infinite.
I've thought in patterns quite some time in my early career. With my colleague back then everything was an pattern and we were kind of in sync with that approach. But it quickly falls apart if you have peers that are less try hard on it. You can spend days, weeks, months to study design patterns and then have to explain it to someone in 5 minutes that simply doesn't care. I can't blame anyone to not care, so that has to be accounted for.
I think the common language argument is tempting, but also too stressed. Good and useful programming knowledge is bound by reality. An integer is a indisputable thing that is always useful. A "singleton" is just a fancy rephrasing of "global state".
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> The truth is that design patterns are at best stagnant in quality and quantity over time (GoF is over 30 years old!), but the quantity and quality of problems is infinite.
I think once you have spent enough time in a software space, nothing is really new under the sun. That's why I think the GoF has aged well (controversial opinion I know!).
I did not mean "everybody has to learn the vocabulary". I meant the opposite, actually: it's fine not to know the word for the tool (I don't enjoy reading about patterns just to learn about patterns, it's not my thing at all).
Say I build a tool that makes it easier for me to drive a nail and call it a "Naildriver". If I show it to a colleague, they may be able to tell me "oh, this is generally called a hammer!". Maybe they will even tell me how I may improve my hammer, because they happen to like to learn about hammers in their free time. Or maybe now that they said it's a known concept, I will enjoy reading about hammers online (doesn't mean I will now read the entire encyclopedia of tools).
The fact that there is a name for the concept ("it's called a hammer") does not say you have to know the word. It's just useful to have a word for it, because then we can reference it in discussions and share knowledge about it more easily.