What's a design pattern?

Computer engineers, city planners, and architects use them. Writers, artists, and salesmen use them. Musicians, bloggers, and doctors use them. Football coaches, mothers, and bosses all use them. Basically, design patterns are found in both the best and worst of us. So what are design patterns? In its most abstract form, design patterns are simply: “things that repeat.”

The “thing” of repetition may be physical or behavioral in expression. The “thing” of repetition may be negative or positive in impact. The “thing” of repetition may be an annoyance or a delight. It matters not. The pattern has no politics. It is a property of repetition and its presence exists whether the designer intended them or not.

Design patterns are simply things that repeat in a design.