Anti-pattern
 | This article only references primary sources. (September 2025) |
An anti-pattern is any common but counterproductive solution to some class of problem. The term, coined in 1995 by Andrew Koenig, was inspired by the book Design Patterns which highlights reliable and effective software development design patterns. Michael Ackroyd described anti-patterns in a paper presented at the 1996 Object World West Conference. The 1998 book AntiPatterns popularized the idea and extended its scope beyond software design to include software architecture and project management. Other authors have extended it further to encompass environmental, organizational, and cultural anti-patterns.
An anti-pattern can be distinguished from a bad habit, bad practice, or bad idea by two traits. First, anti-patterns are commonly used processes, structures or patterns of action that initially appear to be appropriate and effective, but have greater drawbacks than benefits. Second, there is another way to solve the problem that is documented, repeatable, and effective where the anti-pattern is not.
Similar to patterns, a "rule-of-three" applies: to be an anti-pattern it should have occurred at least three times.
Documenting anti-patterns can help to analyze a problem space and to capture expert knowledge. While some anti-pattern descriptions merely document the consequences of the pattern, good anti-pattern documentation also provides alternatives ways to minimize harm.
Examples
In software engineering
In software engineering, anti-patterns include:
- God object
- A single class handles all control in a program rather than control being distributed across multiple classes.
- Magic number
- A literal value with an important yet unexplained meaning which could be replaced with a named constant.
- Poltergeist
- Ephemeral controller classes that only exist to invoke other methods on classes.
- Big Ball of Mud
- A software system that lacks a perceivable architecture. Although undesirable from a software engineering point of view, such systems are common in practice due to business pressures, developer turnover and software entropy.
In project management
Project management anti-patterns included in the Antipatterns book include:
- Blowhard Jamboree
- An excess of industry pundits
- Viewgraph Engineering
- Too much time spent making presentations and not enough on the actual software.
- Death by Planning
- Spending too much effort planning.
- Fear of Success
- Irrational fears near to project completion.
- The Corncob
- Difficulties with people.[vague]
- Intellectual Violence
- Intimidation through use of jargon or arcane technology
- Irrational Management
- Bad management habits.
- Smoke and Mirrors
- Excessive use of demos and prototypes by salespeople.
- Throw It Over the Wall
- Forcing fad software engineering practices onto developers without buy-in.
- Fire Drill
- Long periods of monotony punctuated by short crises.
- The Feud
- Conflicts between managers.
- e-mail Is Dangerous
- Situations resulting from ill-advised e-mail messages.
See also
- Capability Immaturity Model
- Code smell – Characteristic of source code that hints at a quality problem
- Dark pattern – Deceptive user interface designs
- Design smell – Term in computer programming
- ISO/IEC 29110: Software Life Cycle Profiles and Guidelines for Very Small Entities (VSEs)
- List of software anti-patterns
- List of software development philosophies
- List of tools for static code analysis
- Software Peter principle – Engineering term for a complex, failing project
- Software rot – Degradation or loss of the use of software over time
- The Innovator's Dilemma – 1997 book by Clayton M. Christensen
References
What supports what
- ↑ Budgen 2003, p. 225.
- ↑ Ambler 1998, p. 4.
- 1 2 3 Neill, Laplante & DeFranco 2011, p. 4.
- 1 2 Neill, Laplante & DeFranco 2011, p. 5.
- ↑ Moha, Naouel; Gueheneuc, Yann-Gael; Duchien, Laurence; Le Meur, Anne-Francoise (2010). "DECOR: A Method for the Specification and Detection of Code and Design Smells". IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. doi:10.1109/TSE.2009.50.
- ↑ Neill, Laplante & DeFranco 2011, p. 6.
- ↑ Jimenez 2006.
- 1 2 Demeyer 2008, p. 102.
Sources
- Neill, Colin J.; Laplante, Philip A.; DeFranco, Joanna F. (2011). Antipatterns: Managing Software Organizations and People. Applied Software Engineering Series (second ed.). CRC Press. ISBN 9781439862162.
- Budgen, D. (2003). Software design. Harlow, Eng.: Addison-Wesley. p. 225. ISBN 0-201-72219-4.
As described in Long (2001), design anti-patterns are 'obvious, but wrong, solutions to recurring problems'.
- Ambler, Scott W. (1998). Process patterns: building large-scale systems using object technology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-521-64568-9.
...common approaches to solving recurring problems that prove to be ineffective. These approaches are called antipatterns.
- Jimenez, Edward (2006-04-24). "AntiPatterns". AntiPatterns. Retrieved 24 April 2006.
- Demeyer, Serge (2008). "ObjectOriented Reengineering". In Mens, Tom; Demeyer, Serge (eds.). Software Evolution. Springer Science + Business Media. ISBN 9783540764403.
Further reading
- Koenig, Andrew (March–April 1995). "Patterns and Antipatterns". Journal of Object-Oriented Programming. 8 (1): 46–48.
- Later re-printed in: Rising, Linda (1998). The patterns handbook: techniques, strategies, and applications. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. p. 387. ISBN 0-521-64818-1.
An antipattern is just like a pattern, except that instead of a solution it gives something that looks superficially like a solution, but isn't one.
- Later re-printed in: Rising, Linda (1998). The patterns handbook: techniques, strategies, and applications. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. p. 387. ISBN 0-521-64818-1.
- Laplante, Phillip A.; Neill, Colin J. (2005). Antipatterns: Identification, Refactoring and Management. Auerbach Publications. ISBN 0-8493-2994-9.
- Brown, William J.; Malveau, Raphael C.; McCormick, Hays W.; Thomas, Scott W. (2000). Hudson, Theresa Hudson (ed.). Anti-Patterns in Project Management. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-36366-9.
- Stamelos, Ioannis (January 2010). "Software project management anti-patterns". Journal of Systems and Software. 83 (1): 52–59. doi:10.1016/j.jss.2009.09.016.
External links
Media related to Anti-patterns at Wikimedia Commons
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