Some 15 years ago, design patterns were hot. I myself bought the book, Design Patterns. That book was and is hugely popular, and it was the first attempt to capture what most good designers were already doing.
After some time people began to see the dangers of patterns. First of all, presenting these things as things-to-do doesn't move you through the phase of discovering the necessity, hence a feeling of relative importance. You will discover how to do these things when you go along anyway, and then you'll use them because you have no other option.
Secondly, it invites over-use. Literally everything can be pattern-ized, even the simplest operations. Software development is always a trade-off, and it's important to know what to use when, and how to evaluate the necessity of a certain technique. A rather hilarious article appeared in JOOP about a developer who forced everyone in his team to rigorously use patterns for every little thing, and started to doubt whether he did anything wrong - now that they didn't deliver any products anymore.
All in all patterns can be useful, if seen as a way to get wiser and discover new ways of doing things. As long as you keep remembering the principle that following schemes blindly, without true understanding, will lead you to nothing.
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