(also abbreviated GOF)
[prob. a play on the ‘Gang Of Four’ who briefly ran Communist
China after the death of Mao] Describes either the authors or the book
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented
Software published in 1995 by Addison-Wesley (ISBN
0-201-63361-2). The authors forming the Gang Of Four are Erich Gamma,
Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides. They are also sometimes
referred to as ‘Gamma et. al.’ The authors state at http://www.hillside.net/patterns/DPBook/GOF.html
Why are we ... called this? Who knows. Somehow the name just
stuck.
The term is also used to describe any of the design patterns
that are used in the book, referring to the patterns within it as
‘Gang Of Four Patterns.’