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The calling of this focus group is to capture
hard-won expertise and expand the emerging
patterns literature in the area of enterprise
software patterns:
- Patterns of enterprise application architecture;
- Patterns of enterprise application integration; and
- Patterns of enterprise software administration.
Submissions are sought that build upon recent work
in these areas to broaden, deepen, or refine our
understanding of the elements involved, with
particular attention given to patterns or pattern
languages documenting knowledge in areas
under-represented in the literature, such as:
- Security within and across enterprise
software;
- Database administration;
- Workflow and enterprise software;
- Enterprise application deployment approaches;
and
- Production operations of enterprise software.
Although technology changes with time, the
development, integration, and administration of
enterprise software is a mainstay of the software
profession. Enterprise software is distinguished
by the combination of (i) large volumes of
persistent data, accessed concurrently by many
users, often through extensive user interfaces;
and (ii) complexity in the domain modeled in the
data, in the policies encoded in the software, and
in process-driven integrations of the software.
The patterns movement, meanwhile, has
substantially elevated the practice of software
development in the decade leading up to this 10th
PLoP conference. But the leverage afforded
enterprise software practitioners to date, by the
extant patterns literature, is only a fraction of
the potential leverage of a more robust
literature. Groundbreaking work in this area is
raising vocabulary to a level where enterprise
software practitioners are verging on the
handbooks envisioned by some patterns community
founders. Creating this vocabulary and literature
will further realize patterns' potential, and will
improve the quality of enterprise software
practices.
Submissions are invited from practitioners, and those who study the
practices, of enterprise software architecture, integration, and
administration. Many in this population are already familiar with the
extant design patterns literature and enterprise software patterns
literature. Some helped create it by publishing books and articles on
the topic. Others participate in various workshops and electronic
forums germane to enterprise software. Still others participate in
the development of application frameworks and other assets, whether
open-source or commercial, centered around prominent technology
platforms. An untold number live in the context of these patterns
every day, in development organizations of enterprises throughout the
world.
The focus group leaders encourage submissions from experts in
enterprise software subject matters, such as database administration,
security, production operations, and others, even if those experts
have had little exposure to design patterns. At this focus group,
subject matter experts and patterns community leaders will have the
opportunity to learn from each other while creating enterprise
software patterns literature.
Randy Stafford is an enterprise software
practitioner of 14 years' experience, and a
contributor to Martin Fowler's Patterns of
Enterprise Application Architecture and Floyd
Marinescu's EJB Design Patterns. He has
participated in enterprise application
architecture workshops for the last four years,
most recently the
2003 ChiliPLoP hot topic on
enterprise software patterns. For GemStone
Professional Services in 1999 and 2000, he created
several intellectual property assets about
building J2EE applications with GemStone/J,
including a pattern language, an example
application, and a J2EE application framework. He
wrote his first pattern language about enterprise
application architecture in a 1996
paper. Randy
is currently Chief Architect at IQNavigator,
Inc.
Bobby Woolf attended the first six PLoP
conferences and chaired PLoP '99. He has authored
chapters in all four Pattern Language of Program
Design books, has shepherded numerous papers for
PLoP conferences, and has presented patterns in
tutorials at OOPSLA and other conferences. He is a
co-author of The Design Patterns Smalltalk
Companion and the forthcoming Enterprise
Integration Patterns. He worked with Randy on the
Advanced Application Architecture Team at GemStone
Systems, Inc. and has considerable experience with
domain modeling, developing reusable frameworks,
and application integration via messaging and
workflow. He works as an independent
consultant.
Please submit papers for this focus group in PDF
or Word format, addressed to both Randy Stafford
at
rstafford@iqnavigator.com, and Bobby Woolf at
woolf@acm.org. We can also answer questions about
the focus group topic, submissions, and format of
sessions at those addresses.
Preference will be given to papers with clearly
presented patterns in well-known problem areas,
describing familiar solutions that have yet to be
documented. Simple, reliable, common solutions
will be preferred to clever and little-used
tricks. In order to encourage new members to join
the patterns community we welcome solutions, with
room for improvement in their pattern form
presentation, from the under-represented areas
listed above. Well-written presentations of
lesser-force-resolving patterns in
well-represented areas are also welcome, to help
extend the language in this domain.
The primary format of this focus group's sessions
will be traditional
writer's workshops, in which
the group works together to improve the quality of
pattern presentations prepared in advance by group
attendees. However an important secondary format,
to add variety and produce a valuable collective
work product, will be collaborative construction
of a "pattern map" in this domain, to show an
outline of an overall pattern language, and how
various patterns relate to one another. Finally,
this focus group plans an
activity designed to
expose the rest of the conference attendees to our
domain and its patterns, in a manner that we hope
will be entertaining.
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