On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 8:25 AM, Douglas C. Schmidt <
[email protected]> wrote:

>
> Hi folks,
>
>   It strikes me that there's a fundamental disconnect at the heart of
> this discussion.  Pattern form is best used to give (among other things)
> a dispassionate evaluation of the (often contextually related) pros/cons
> of recurring design abstractions.  It's not well suited for advocating
> the superiority of one particular design abstraction over all others in
> all situations.  Al's goal seems to be to convince everyone that MDP
> should be *the* solution to all software design problems, which is
> clearly (at least to me) not defensible for all the reasons that have
> been mentioned here the past months.


Yes, pattern form is best used to talk about tradeoffs and the pros and cons
of various approaches.  One of the biggest problems with the MDP writeup is
that it is so one-sided.  It never discusses the costs of MDP.  When I read
it, I feel like I'm listening to a used car salesman.  Most engineers get
turned off by this approach. I certainly do.

Like most patterns, MDP is an exception, not the norm.    You don't use the
Strategy pattern to implement every algorithm.  You use it (sometimes) when
you want to make it easier to switch between algorithms.  So, I don't want
to be told why MDP is so wonderful.  I want to know when I should consider
using it.  And when I should definitely not consider using it.

-Ralph
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