Are you a ferengi programmer or want to become one?

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/02/the-ferengi-programmer.html

One of my colleagues (the minimalist developer) pointed this article out to me with the following warning:

"Good read but a General Health Warning to those with the soft spot for patterns, SOLID and all those patterns that spews out of a la Martin Fowler cliché. The post will probably make you squirm, increase indigestion, make you vomit or all of them in no particular sequence.

You have been warned. "

Patterns, practises, etc are guidelines, not rules that people have found work in certain situations. They can’t and shouldn’t be forced upon every situation.

It’s like using sample code you find on the web.
You don’t just paste it verbatim into your project and then beat all the surrounding code with a hammer to make it fit. You read it, digest it and implement the bits of it that sense, in a way that makes sense to your project.

Patterns are the same. It is important to know of them, just as it’s important to know the standard libraries in your language of choice, because it gives you a library of knowledge that you can quickly draw upon to solve problems. It also increases your ability to communicate with other developers without having to explain the full details of what your trying to do.
But they need to be applied only when and in ways that make sense to what you’re trying to achieve.