Lectures 5 and 6

Lecture 5 (just before Easter) looked at the Decorator, Iterator, Composite and Command patterns.

Lecture 6 (just after Easter) looked at a number of pattern catalogues both in book format and on the web. Details of many of these are on the unit web page either in the booklist section or in the Week 6 section.

A number of students have decided to do blogs as part of their portfolio and asked for examples of other student blogs. These are the ones I've managed to find:

Blog from Simon Walton a student on the EELIP MSc unit - it includes links to other students' blogs.

A tour of how Warwick Blogs work and a link to their blog directory - this includes personal blogs as well as unit related blogs.

I'm currently reading "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald A. Norman published by Basic Books in 2002, ISBN 0465067107. This talks about how to design usability into (physical) objects in such a way that they are of high quality and just right for use - a concept very similar to Alexander's requirement for "QWAN" in and through patterns. Norman also has an interesting discussion of 'affordances' ie what it is something does best eg a chair has the affordance of being sat on but could also be used for standing on (for which it doesn't offer an affordance). This links well to the idea of using software to do the things it is best at ie offers affordances in.