In his postscript the author explains that he wasn't trying to criticize design patterns, but was rather trying to promote this other concept; which, supposedly, is little known in CS circles because of the similar names...
His summary: "We need to take a fresh look at Christopher Alexander."
That's all well and good, and as far as I know the concept of pattern languages could be very useful; I wouldn't know, I've never heard of it till today, and in fact still have no idea what it's about. Which brings me to my point, which is to wonder why the author chose to waste an entire 5 minute and 13 slide presentation (5 of which were dedicated just to bashing design patterns) to making the point that "we need to take a fresh look at Christopher Alexander," instead of, say, spending more time introducing Alexander's ideas and presenting ways they could be useful in our domain.
I will conclude by pointing out another pet peeve of mine, which is sensationalist titles only tangentially related to the content. Design pattern, most certainly, ARE. What they are NOT is pattern languages, which is a similar sounding but entirely different concept.
TL;DR: Gof had in mind C++ and Smalltalk. Some languages eliminate the need for many of the patterns in GoF, and they don't eliminate the idioms (patterns for a particular language), as they barely cover it.
His summary: "We need to take a fresh look at Christopher Alexander."
That's all well and good, and as far as I know the concept of pattern languages could be very useful; I wouldn't know, I've never heard of it till today, and in fact still have no idea what it's about. Which brings me to my point, which is to wonder why the author chose to waste an entire 5 minute and 13 slide presentation (5 of which were dedicated just to bashing design patterns) to making the point that "we need to take a fresh look at Christopher Alexander," instead of, say, spending more time introducing Alexander's ideas and presenting ways they could be useful in our domain.
I will conclude by pointing out another pet peeve of mine, which is sensationalist titles only tangentially related to the content. Design pattern, most certainly, ARE. What they are NOT is pattern languages, which is a similar sounding but entirely different concept.
</ grumpy geezer mode>