Language concepts and design patterns

Programming languages aim at the construction of simple but
expressive programs. To achieve this, plenty of language
concepts have arisen over time. Design patterns aim at the
solution of common design problems. To achieve this, plenty
of approved design concepts have been collected.

We claim that language concepts and design patterns are
essentially the same. Indeed, a language may offer a design
pattern as a language concept; we call such patterns "language
patterns".

A design pattern can be implemented in terms of other design or
language patterns. Since a concrete programming language only
supports a subset of language patterns, every other pattern must
be expressed in terms of this subset. We call such
an implementation a "workaround". The specification of a
workaround imposes proof obligations: it must be shown that a
workaround simulates the pattern. Once proved correct, we can
collect patterns and their workarounds in a trustworthy
catalogue. This helps software developers to correctly apply
patterns in any language and helps the language designer to
decide which patterns to put into the language core.
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We demonstrate this pattern integration process with
well-known design patterns and concepts of object-oriented
languages. Additionally, we list important language patterns
together with their workarounds.