[plt-scheme] what's HtDP, what it is NOT

2009/2/23 Grant Rettke <grettke at acm.org>:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Matthias Felleisen
> <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>> Alexander also hates, absolutely hates, how computer scientists
>> misappropriated his patterns. If you ever have a chance to read his original
>> Notes, cover to cover, you will see a lot of similarity with HtDP and
>> believe it or not, Robby's contract work. -- Matthias
>
> Which original notes? Are they in a book?

I'm guessing that he's referring to "Notes on the Synthesis of Form".
It's an excellent read.

That being said, I do remember something I found distressing in it.
For some inexplicable reason, it's not sitting on my shelf in front of
me at the moment, so I can't double check. What I remember, though, is
that my (new-ish) edition had an additional foreword in which he says
that although he spends most of the book dealing with the process for
coming up with designs, what he now (newer publication date) considers
more important are the patterns themselves, and how they can be
isolated, interchanged, and re-used.

I never really understood what he meant by this, but that might be
because I've had too much contact with the software engineering form
of design patterns to be able to interpret that in a fresh way.
Certainly re-use of existing solutions is good, but is that really
more important than the process for coming up with solutions to
problems?

    Henk