Craft Mystery

The paper "The Beginnings of the Change from Craft Mystery to Science as a Basis for Technology" by A.R.J.P. Ubbelohde is at http://www.patenting-art.com/science/sci2tech.htm

This paper defines "craft" as the ability to do something that is passed on from one person to another by watching them practice but without really explaining it. So, it is a mystery. Science and technology occur when we figure out how to explain what we do, and it becomes more repeatable.

Given this definition, patterns are part of the process of moving programming from craft to science.

-- RalphJohnson