This paper is based on and advocates the trend in software engineering of
extending the use of software patterns as means of structuring solutions to
software development problems (be they motivated by best practice or by company
interests and policies). The paper argues that, on the one hand, this
development requires tools for automatic organisation, retrieval and
explanation of software patterns. On the other hand, that the existence of such
tools itself will facilitate the further development and employment of patterns
in the software development process. The paper analyses existing pattern
representations and concludes that they are inadequate for the kind of
automation intended here. Adopting a standpoint similar to that taken in the
semantic web, the paper proposes that feasible solutions can be built on the
basis of ontological representations.Comment: 7 page