Sometimes, when refactoring a system which contains terrible design mistakes, one probably learns more about what not to do (i.e., AntiPattern''''''s) and thus about what to do than if you had started with a system of already acceptable quality. Refactoring such a system more or less ''forces'' you to think patterns. (Paradoxically I once even found the resulting system to be ''better'' than it would have been had I started from scratch because of what I had learned. But then, I had enough time and the system was very small.) When you use EducationalMistakes deliberately as an educational tool for teaching, you are applying a WittgensteinsLadder. -- FalkBruegmann ---- There is a PedagogicalPattern called FixerUpper that addresses this issue. -- JoeBergin ---- CategoryEducation