Patterns for Fault Tolerant Software

I used Bob's book "Patterns for Fault Tolerant Software" as reading material for my "Advanced Patterns and Frameworks" course. My students and me liked it very much. Not only is fault tolerance a domain not well covered by a typical informatics bachelor's program but also the writing style and presentation of the patterns in "Alexandrian form" made the patterns easy to read and follow. In contrast to the sole other reviewer, my students could cope with the networked structure of the pattern language easily and the diagrams visualizing the interconnection helped greatly to follow the interdependence of the patterns. Each week the students prepared a section or a group of patterns and explained and discussed the patterns as a group in front of other student groups that had to prepare other pattern books. Not only the students actually reading Bob's book, but also the students from the other groups got a great overview on the domain of fault tolerance. They often could relate the patterns from the book to their own experience and knowledge gained in other courses, i.e., on computer networks, and thus strengthen their understanding in both areas. From a pattern perspective, I liked the "Alexandrian" approach as performed by Bob Hanmer very much, because in contrast to my own pattern writing style it suits better for "smaller" and interconnected patterns forming a pattern language. The pictures and visuals help a lot in memorizing and understanding the concepts behind the individual patterns.