Design pattern alternatives: What to do when a GoF pattern fails

Design patterns have been introduced in the field of software engineering in the middle of 90s as common solutions to common design problems. Until now, the effect of design patterns on software quality attributes has been studied by many researchers. However, the results are not the expected ones, in the sense that several studies suggest that there are cases when a design pattern is not the optimum way of designing a system. In this paper, we present the findings of a systematic literature review that aims at cataloging published design solutions, referenced as alternative design solutions, which are equivalent to design patterns and can be used when a design pattern instance is not the optimum design solution for a specific design problem. Copyright \ua9 2013 ACM