Three Patterns from the ADAPTOR Pattern Language

History The ADAPTOR patterns were originally mined from a series of five different migration projects in different business domains within the telecommunications sector beginning as far back as 1993. Originally, the lessons of these projects were not captured as patterns, but this became a conscious aim from 1995 when, at first, individual design patterns were collected in a catalogue. Very quickly it became apparent that other kinds of patterns, notably organisational patterns, were needed to deal with some of the challenges that routinely emerge when an attempt is being made to change an existing, brittle structure into one which is more flexible to change. At the same time interconnections between the individual patterns suggested that there was a possibility of developing less a catalogue of individual, “standalone” patterns and more of a pattern language whose patterns, when applied in context in an appropriate sequence, could “generate” solutions. The ADAPTOR project became a conscious one from 1996 onwards, though as mentioned above, the patterns were mined from projects from 1993. Incidentally, in its current version, patterns have been mined from further projects in rather more varied sectors such as the defence industry, the oil exploration industry and the retail buying industry.