Design patterns

Up until about a year ago I had never heard of Design Patterns.  I learned about it shortly after I joined a team and the techies were in the process of  'interviewing' me.

In the time since then I have noticed many PMs and BAs I have spent with are unfamiliar with the term and concepts behind it.  No surprise really, as I had worked with I.T. projects for over 10 years as a 'business' oriented person, and I never got invited into the programmer's library.  Why should I expect everyone else has?

What is a Deign Pattern?  It is what it sounds like. I'll not go into detail explaining it, but will instead provide a short reading list.  Let' start with Wikipedia.

• Wikipedia introduction - a not so basic introduction
• CodeBetter introduction article - an in depth introduction to a particular type of design pattern
• Gang of Four Design Patterns - Does it stand the test of time? - A short InfoQ piece looking at challenges to the design pattern concept
  
• Gang of Four Design Patterns - the "Gang of Four" wrote the seminal book on the topic.  Here are diagramatic descriptions of their patterns
• Printable reference cards - useful for the team, maybe?
  

Patterns particularly relevant to me

• MVVM
• MVP
  

Image care of Penguin & Fish cc at Flickr