The
PatternForm was invented by
ChristopherAlexander, who is an architect (the kind who designs buildings, bridges, and the like; as opposed to a
SoftwareArchitect or
SystemArchitect) and professor emeritus of architecture at
CalBerkeley. The term
ArchitecturalDesignPatterns is used to differentiate between Alexander's
DesignPatterns, and the
DesignPatterns in software, which are distinguished as
SoftwareDesignPatterns.
This WikiBadge would be more useful if people here were actually documenting ArchitecturalDesignPatterns. Mostly, though, Wiki seems to be about software, which makes the badge seem a bit like PrematureGeneralization, or maybe PrematureCategorization?
It wasn't intended as a
WikiBadge. It's purely to justify the distinction between
DesignPatterns and
SoftwareDesignPatterns. For example, on the timeline presented on
InformalHistoryOfProgrammingIdeas, if someone wanted to cite Alexander's contribution to
DesignPatterns, they would put an entry for
ArchitecturalDesignPatterns, to separate it from the existing entry for
SoftwareDesignPatterns.
Is this something that is genuinely causing confusion among us here on Wiki? Are there cases where the extra verbiage is worth making the distinction so specifically?
Note that
ChristopherAlexander just calls them "patterns", not "design patterns". So, calling them
ArchitecturalDesignPatterns is a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps they should be
ArchitecturalPatterns, but software people have their own definition for that word. Software people think patterns are like objects containing algorithms and data structures.