Software Decisions with Pattern Relations

The concept of patterns is gaining widespread acceptance in the software community--in un-derstanding domains, in reusing elegant solutions ’ designs and in communicating efficiently. Several types of patterns (for example, analysis patterns, design patterns or idioms) cover different structural aspects of software solutions. Other patterns describe important issues of the software development process. Despite recent efforts, many patterns or pattern languages remain isolated and don’t relate well to each other. While analysis patterns are widely used to support domain understanding, other powerful ways to use them remain unexploited. In this paper, applications of patterns and idioms are described to support software decisions. First, existing analysis patterns are transferred to a new domain, and modified wherever nec-essary due to the target domain’s requirements. Then, patterns are related to possible con-crete ways of designing and implementing working solutions, usually to idioms or commercial off-the-shelf solutions. Finally, these relations are used to support software decisions. The proposed approach of applying existing patterns and relating them to solution-oriented patterns substantially eases domain understanding and software decision making. 1