Book by
William J. Brown,
Raphael C. Malveau,
Hays W. “Skip” McCormick III and
Thomas J. Mowbray. Published by Wiley Computer Publishing, ISBN 0-471-19713-0
Patterns have come to be an important part of software development and if you want to do something right, patterns can be your best friends. But what if something goes wrong? Look for an antipattern! An antipattern is a description of a commonly occurring problem in software engineering, and a solution for it. These solutions, called refactored solutions can be applied to a range of specific problems described by the antipattern and (hopefully) alleviate these problems.
The book describes antipatterns for development, architecture and management. The management antipattern section is a very interesting read. It’s a bit like a Dilbert strip without the pictures.
I cannot endorse this book enough. It should be required reading for anyone even remotely involved with the software industry. Not only does it help you with problems that are already there, it helps avoiding some of them even before they develop.
The blurb on the back of the book quotes John Vlissides: “…the authors have clearly been there and done that…” and for once I agree with the hype.