"Design Patterns" for Dynamic Languages on the JVM Machine
TS-4961

The "Gang of Four" book was actually two books: (1) a nomenclature describing common software problems and (2) a recipe book for solutions. The vocabulary they defined is still useful. The recipes are a disaster, though! Dynamic languages (such as Groovy and Ruby) have powerful metaprogramming facilities far beyond statically typed languages. It turns out that many of the structural design patterns in the "Gang of Four" book and beyond are much easier to solve with metaprogramming. This session compares and contrasts the "traditional" approach of design patterns with a more nuanced metaprogramming approach. Using language features creates cleaner abstractions with fewer lines of code and little or no additional structure. This session shows one of the many reasons dynamic languages are such a hot topic.