5.1. The Articles of Confederation and the Stovepipe Antipattern

Software design patterns and antipatterns can be classified by the general type of problem they describe or solve. Patterns in a category known as enterprise architecture make a good place to begin exploring the connection between the worlds of government and software, as they tend to be concerned more with the management of overall systems than with lines of code. What follows is an exploration into how the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, represents a classic example of an antipattern known as the enterprise stovepipe. From that comparison, we will explore strategies for overcoming an enterprise stovepipe and will then see how the Constitution is in fact a historical illustration of those strategies.

Note:

An antipattern is much like a regular pattern in that it describes observable phenomena that tend to occur with some frequency. However, antipatterns go further to define specific types of patterns which generally yield negative outcomes. Put another way, an antipattern describes a pattern that should be stopped.