Antipattern

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A frequently encountered approach that ultimately yields suboptimal results
2. A habitual practice or method in development processes that consistently leads to undesirable outcomes
3. An often-used technique or strategy that causes poor performance or problems rather than solving them

Etymology: Andrew Koenig coined "antipattern" in 1995, when he needed a name for something software developers kept doing by habit. The word is built from the prefix "anti-", meaning against or opposed to, and "pattern", a familiar design term. Koenig's version was deliberately modeled on the "design pattern": a reusable, proven solution to a recurring problem. An antipattern is the mirror image, a solution that looks reasonable and gets used often but ends up making the situation worse. The idea took its shape from the design-pattern movement of the 1990s, which catalogued good solutions to common programming problems. Koenig borrowed that structure to describe bad ones, so that a common mistake could be named, recognized, and avoided in the same way a good practice could be shared. The term is now used well beyond software, in fields such as management and project planning, to describe any widely repeated practice that does more harm than good.

Synonyms: bad practice, flaw