Talk:Moodle User Interface Guidelines:Introduction
Some notes to develop the introduction
Problem:
How do you give the reader an overview of a set of patterns?
Context:
You are writing a pattern language describing the solution for a complex problem.
Forces:
- A pattern language should be more than just the sum of its parts.
- The connections between patterns (how they relate with one another) are not always obvious.
- Inter-pattern relationships are sometimes difficult to understand solely from the perspective of the patterns involved in the relationships.
- Describing the relationships between many patterns in one place takes extra effort and increases the bulk of the language.
Solution:
Identify the set of patterns as a pattern language and write a summary which introduces the larger problem and the patterns which contribute to solving it. This summary explains why the patterns belong together, the common threads found in more than one pattern, and how the patterns can be used together to do something useful. It can also be used to introduce the Running Example. By describing the overall context, it may significantly reduce the need to provide duplicate, detailed contexts within each pattern, although this could make the individual patterns less usable outside the context of the language.
In larger pattern languages, it is useful to provide a Problem/Solution Summary to help the reader find the pattern(s) which solve their specific problems.
Rationale:
A Pattern Language Summary provides the "big picture" while the related patterns section of each pattern provide the detailed linkages. The Pattern Language Summary may be the only place one can talk about the pattern language as a whole.
In the PLoP'96 review sessions in which the authors participated, the reviewers consistently preferred languages that introduced the patterns in a Pattern Language Summary over those that launched right into describing the patterns.
From: http://www.hillside.net/patterns/writing/patterns.htm#E --Olli Savolainen 15:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
