OO overkill

Object oriented design patterns as popularized in [GHJV95] are intended to solve common programming problems and to assist the programmer in designing and developing robust systems. As first year courses increasingly emphasize object orientation, knowledge of design patterns and when to use them becomes an important component of the first year curriculum. Recent literature has focused on introducing the patterns to computer science educators, but not on the situations and contexts in which the patterns are appropriate. Design patterns and object orientation are parts of a methodology that scales to large systems. In this paper we show that these concepts do not always scale down. We analyze examples from current literature that would be simpler without patterns, and provide examples of when the same design patterns do make design and programs simpler.