The Hillside Group is an educational

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

founded in August 1993 to help

software developers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

analyze and document common development and design problems as

software design pattern In software engineering, a software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into source or machine co ...

s. The Hillside Group supports the patterns community through sponsorship of the

Pattern Languages of Programs Pattern Languages of Programs is the name of a group of annual conferences sponsored by The Hillside Group. The purpose of these conferences is to develop and refine the art of software design patterns. Most of the effort focuses on developing ...

conferences.

History

In August 1993,

Kent Beck Kent Beck (born 1961) is an American software engineer and the creator of extreme programming, a software development methodology that eschews rigid formal specification for a collaborative and iterative design process. Beck was one of the 17 ...

and

Grady Booch Grady Booch (born February 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software archi ...

sponsored a mountain retreat in Colorado where a group converged on foundations for software patterns. Ward Cunningham, Ralph Johnson,

Ken Auer Ken or KEN may refer to: Entertainment * ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer. * ''Ken'' (film), 1964 Japanese film. * ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine. * Ken Masters, a main character in t ...

, Hal Hildebrand, Grady Booch, Kent Beck, and Jim Coplien examined architect Christopher Alexander's work in

pattern language A pattern language is an organized and coherent set of ''patterns'', each of which describes a problem and the core of a solution that can be used in many ways within a specific field of expertise. The term was coined by architect Christopher Alexa ...

and their own experiences as software developers to combine the concepts of objects and patterns and apply them to writing computer programs. The group agreed to build on

Erich Gamma Erich Gamma is a Swiss computer scientist and one of the four co-authors (referred to as "Gang of Four") of the software engineering textbook, '' Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software''. Gamma is an expert in the Eclipse ...

's study of object-oriented patterns, but to use patterns in a generative way in the sense that Alexander uses patterns for urban planning and architecture. They used the word ''generative'' to mean creational, to distinguish them from Gamma's patterns' that captured observations. The group was meeting on the side of a hill, which led them to name themselves the Hillside Group. Since then, the Hillside Group has been incorporated as an educational non-profit organization. It sponsors and helps run

(PLoP) conferences such a
PLoPEuroPlopChiliPlopGuruPLoPAsian PLoPScrum PLoPViking PLoP
an
Sugarloaf PLoP
The Hillside Group has also worked on the Pattern Languages of Program Design series of books.

Activities

The Hillside Group sponsors the Pattern Languages of Programs conferences in various countries, including the U.S., Brazil, Norway, Germany, Australia, and Japan. The Hillside Group assisted in publishing the Pattern Languages of Program Design book series until 2006. Since 2006, The Hillside Group has published patterns and conference proceedings through the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library.

Patterns Library

Th
Hillside Patterns Library
contains a comprehensive archive of patterns developed by the community, either directly or indirectly through the PLoP conferences.

Conferences

The Hillside Group sponsors the conferences listed. The conferences focus on writing patterns, workshops, and invited talks related to pattern development. Most of the conferences are held annually and encourage attendees to submit papers pre-conference for inclusion in the writer's workshops. The papers undergo a shepherding process, where they are analyzed and evolved before conference attendance. * PLoP:

* ChiliPLoP: Southwestern Conference on Pattern Languages of Program

* EuroPLoP: European Conference on Pattern Languages of Program

* AsianPLoP: Japanese Conference on Pattern Languages of Program

* SugarLoafPLoP: Latin American Conference on Pattern Languages of Programmin

* VikingPLoP: Nordic Conference on Pattern Languages of Program

* ScrumPLoP: Conference on Pattern Languages of Scru

* EduPLoP: Educational Patterns Writing Worksho

The Hillside Group Board

The President of The Hillside Group for 2010–2014 is Joseph Yoder (computer scientist), Joseph Yoder of The Refactory, Inc. The Hillside Group is led by a Board consisting of the President, Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Treasurer, two Directors, Secretary, two Editors in Chief and four Members.

Current board

Founding members

* Ward Cunningham * Ralph Johnson * Ken Auer * Hal Hildebrand *

* Jim Coplien

References

External links

The Hillside Group official website

The Hillside Group European website

List of PLoP Conferences

LNCS Transactions on Pattern Languages of Programming

ACM Digital Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hillside Group Professional associations based in the United States Computer science organizations Information technology organizations Organizations established in 1993 Software design patterns