Hiya Nancy ---

I haven't read that book (Anti-Patterns) yet, but patterns can be (and always have been) applied to legacy systems. Haven't you ever optimized a system even in the old DOS days by looking for duplicate procedures and/or code and creating a generic UDF for them? If you looked at the post-optimized code, you would surely be able to classify patterns out of some routines and functions.

IMHO, too much attention is sometimes given to buzz-words that are defining things we've been intuitively doing for a long, long time :-D

>I've started reading Anti_Patterns:_Refactoring_Software,_Architectures,_and_Projects_in_Crisis by William J. Brown, et. al. (Christmas present! )
>
>It is interesting to me since most of the work I do is on existing systems. I've always had a bit of struggle with Design Patterns. The authors suggest a reason why: that design patterns (applying them) really is appropriate for ground-up, new systems. But often in-place systems need to be, in their words, refactored.
>
>Anyway, as a design pattern novice I am really enjoying it. It's not at all (IMHO) incompatible with a study of design patterns themselves.

------------------------------------------------
John Koziol, ex-MVP, ex-MS, ex-FoxTeam. Just call me "X"
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" - Hunter Thompson (Gonzo) RIP 2/19/05