OReilly - CSharp 3.0 Design Patterns

Design patterns are among the major tools in the toolboxes of those who espouse the generalist approach. If you look at samples from a broad spectrum of software solutions, you will find that though the specifics may vary widely, there is often an underlying structural similarity. (Searching a filesystem for a file with a particular attribute is in some sense structurally similar to searching an annotated parse tree for a symbol with a particular type.) Design patterns codify general solutions to common problems.

The ultimate example of the generalist approach is of course the design and implementation of programming languages themselves. As problem solving tools go, it is hard to get more general than a programming language like C#. When designing new programming languages (or new versions of old programming languages), we think about common problems that are faced every day by real developers and figure out how to create a language which solves them in a general, aesthetically pleasing, and powerful way that is broadly applicable.