This is about an effort to revealing the Nature of Pattern Languages by introducing more formalism in the PL approach. It is a proposal that helps to describe structures and relations that allows us to understand better what Pattern Languages are.
# Motivation Alexander -> asked how to decompose design problmes int more graspable ones (Notes on the Synthesis of Form) Alexander formulated a methodological approach that allows to fidn and apply good designs to solve problems -> using mathematical logic However, what we call a pattern language is NOT clearly defined. It is an interpreations and many different descriptions of what it can perform.
If the Pattern Theory is as fundamental as the pattern community thinks, it ise then we need a clear formalism of what pattern languages are (Falkenthal)
POST http://image-transporter.apps.allmende.io/image
# Features of a Pattern Language
certain order tight relations see Alexandrian Pattern Graph -> larger patterns ------ smaller pattern (ordering according to morphological structure) -> so an APG is an directed acyclic graph (DAC) by refining the sed of edges E to contain order from larger to smaller patterns there is a semantics of relations between patterns -
However, when we use the network of a language, we always use it as a sequence, goging through the patterns, moving always form the larger to the smaller patterns (PL: xviii)
we would need to be able to explain how these patterns work together and why, f.i. Directed Weighted Pattern Graph
# Sources
Presentation by Michael Falkenthal html 
,at Purplsoc 2017
The Structure of a PL is created bhe the fact that individual patterns are not isolated. ToB. 311 a pl has a structure of a network (ToB Einleitung) It is , indeed, the structre of the network which makes sense of incifudual paterns, because it canhors them, and helps make them complete (315 "we inow that it is a finite system of rules" (191)
Mathematicians can apply a graph -> to formalize the relations; f.i: to determine the idea of "adjacent" to finally "organize the network of patterns"
the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature as you make it "PL: p xiii) Each patterns then, depends both on the smaller patterns it CONTAINS, and on the larger patterns within wihci it is contained (ToB: 313 "Each patern is itself a part of some larger pattern [...] ..." -> das heißt aber doch, dass das Set INFINIT und nicht ENDLICH ist.
Featzres
# Adding New Patterns to a Pattern Language Folien 20, 21, Problem: We need a means to systematicalla describe the relations between patterns Typically we need predefined and reusable structures -> Directed Pattern Graph with Types. A type