(Original position: largely unchanged since 1996.)
Systems Thinking and Pattern Languages go hand in hand. I use patterns to construct systems, and systems to explore and discover patterns. My particular interest tends towards the effects of unbalanced forces (e.g., "how in the heck did that happen?"). Having marched through the valley of death several times, I'm motivated to use systems and patterns to help myself and others avoid future project pain.
To describe patterns used to restabilize unstable systems, I coined the term Corrective Action patterns. Poorly applied, as they often are, Corrective Action patterns can be Anti Patterns. Better to apply Preventative Action.
Other contributions: Premature Generalization | Code Stewardship | Dry Run Backup | Script The Demo | Lie To Your Manager | Know Your Customer | Technical Debt | Entropy Reduction | Staying Current | Coming Up To Speed | Visitor From Mars | Train Your Replacement | Make Reviews Fun | Whats The Payoff | Conways Law | Prepare The Way | Westmoreland Effect | Complexity Of Everyday Life | Roman Evaluation | St Benedicts Rule | Sticky Fingers | Unstable Backups | Daves Law Of Proximate Acronyms
Some programming stuff: Zero And One Based Indexes | Perl Singleton
And some book reviews: The Most Beautiful House In The World | Short History Of An Idea | How Buildings Learn | The Art Of Juggling | Quality Software Management | Effective Perl Programming
See original on c2.com 