Why is this important? Oddly, while a growing number Web developers have come from non-computer science (CS) backgrounds, the enrollment in CS, as well as other technology-related specializations by college students, has been dropping like a rock. Despite the hysterics by the “anti-immigration” crowd in the US, the US would be screwed were it not for immigrants who have computing skills. However, even with immigration and outsourcing, a large number of technology positions for Internet-related software go begging. As a result, many of those who fill the positions come from the “Non-serious” pool of programmers. Some have degrees in other areas ranging from music to communications, while others have not even gone to college. However, they desperately need these higher level skills and conceptual frameworks in OOP and design patterns.

This is where confusion can set in. In a CS curriculum, Design Patterns generally have one meaning and that’s the one used by GoF. (I checked at MIT and some other places, and where the term ‘design pattern’ comes up in computer languages, so too does GoF or one of their patterns.) However, for non-CS types, Design Patterns don’t mean jack. All too often, they buy into the misconceptions about design patterns thereby not only missing out on the good OOP practices fundamentally embedded in design patterns but the larger community of discussions about them.

Anyway, as long as design patterns aren’t relegated to the granularity of algorithms or mere expressions, I suppose a wider OOP discussion should be considered with design patterns and ECMAScript languages.