Apparently, everyone knows about patterns. Except for the ones that don't. Which is basically all the people who've never come across patterns... plus most of the people who have.

Singleton as a rite of patternhood and a source of excitement. Patterns as the raw materials of blueprint-driven architecture and design by diktat. Patterns as something you don't need to know any more because you've got frameworks, libraries and middleware by the download. Patterns as something you don't need to know because you're building on UML, legacy code or emergent design. All these misconceptions... and more.

In this talk, let's take an alternative tour of patterns, one that is based on improving the habitability of code, communication, exploration, empiricism, reasoning, incremental development, sharing design and bridging rather than barricading different levels of expertise.

Keywords: Patterns, Architecture

Target audience: Architects (actual and aspiring) and developers (current and historic)