Styles, Pattern and Idioms

From a recent discussion with Duncan Cragg, related to his proposed FOREST, a get-only-rest-integration-pattern I came to think that it was good to create a little post to explain the difference between an Architecture Style and a Design Pattern. So, let’s do it.

It was Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. (Oxford University Press, 1977) that coined the Pattern term to denote ideas or solutions that were proven to be successful and widely used.

Well, that book was about buildings, and Alexander was an architect, of the building class. When mapped to the IT field, we have three levels at what we develop: Strategic, Tactical and Operational, or Architectural, Design, Implementation. So, we have those “ideas or solutions” in all those three levels. For Architectural level, we have Architectural Styles. For Design level, we have Design Patterns (or just plain patterns) and for Implementation level we have Idioms. You can read the definitions in POSA1 (Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture:A System of Patterns from Buschmann et al, Wiley 1996).

The style name is discussed by Roy T. Fielding in his dissertation about REST. He actually dislikes a little the name since he says it represents more a particular way of doing things (that singer’s style) rather than a general way of doing things. Coming from the art world myself, I can say it has that other meaning: a style is a way someone follows, and thus “followable”. Given someone is so original that creates a new style that others follow, does not take away that followable quality, only makes it richer.


So, as you know, the architecture of a system is the organization of its elements and their relationships, guided by principles. When defining a style, you define what types of elements would you use, what do they do, the relationships, and principles to guide their construction. A Simple example is the Client Server style. It identifies two architectural elements, the client and the server, indicates what each one does and who will the interact. Not this is a global solution: the whole system works Following this style.


BTW, Roy defines the Styles more like a set of constrains, coordinated, that define the elements and relationships. Actually, REST is defined that way in this dissertation.


When defining a Pattern, you work closer to implementation. There, you define a solution in the domain context, identifying actors and processes, relationships and results, aimed to solve a localized problem. The example here is the Factory. To solve the problem of needing different but similar objects depending on some parameter, the factory proposes the creation of the right type of object. Note this is in an object oriented context, and the solution is given in terms of objects, and it is to solve a particular problem in the whole system, not to define the whole system. Finally, note this is an idea that can be implemented in any OO language, and particularly in Java you can do it using inheritance or interfaces, meaning the pattern does not impose an specific implementation.

The Idioms are little patterns related to languages. These are proven ideas of how to accomplish things in one particular language. Say, to use StringBuffer in Java to concatenate strings.

As you can see, in general, patterns are good things, but quite different depending on the development level you are using. Now, to define a pattern, you need to provide at least five things, per Nick Rozanski and Eoin Woods, in Software Systems Architecture: Working with Stakeholders Using Viewpoints and Perspectives (Addison Wesley 2005).:

1. A name
   
2. A context where the problem and solution may be presented.
3. A problem to solve
4. The actual solution, given at the appropriate level
5. The consequences of applying that solution.

So, it is important to check all that before defining a new pattern, or before applying it. This last part is very important, since you may end up using a pattern that is not suitable for the context, for the problem or that has unwanted consequences.

Hope this helps clarify the concepts!