The Gang-of-Four Group

Next Meeting: See Agenda Below
    Location: the atrium at the IBM buiding in Midtown
              590 Madison Ave at E 57th Stlr South
        Time: Mondays,7:00 - 9:00 PM
   Questions? email Shafik  or Joshua
	

The Group

Every week, the GoF Group studies some of the best software patterns papers to emerge over the last 3-4 years. These papers are hand-picked by the DPSG from a number of great books, including preceedings from patterns conferences, such as PLoP (Pattern Languages of Programming).

The Gang of Four

The term "Gang of Four" (or "GoF" for short) is used to refer to the four authors of the book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software: Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides. The appellation is perhaps an allusion to the "Gang of Four" from Chinese history. The historical term refers to four of the most powerful men in the first half of Mao Tse Tung's regime who would later be blamed (along with Mao's wife) for the failures of Mao's policies. Indeed these four authors have had a tremendous impact on the software engineering community.

What Are We Studying

Our meetings cover patterns and pattern languages, picking up from where the 4G group leaves off. We study patterns from a variety of books and papers.

For the fall and early winter we are focusing on the design patterns in Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture - A System of Patterns (POSA I) by F. Buschmann, R. Meunier, H. Rohnert, P. Sommerlad, and M. Stal. They are listed in the schedule to the right.

Note that we are meeting every other week.