Microsoft has only recently "gotten religion" where software patterns are concerned. Their patterns & practices site is recent, as is any formal interest in or promotion of patterns within the company. They were late to recognize the importance of software patterns, especially among corporate and Java developers, just as they were late to see the importance of the internet. However, as with the internet, though they are at the back of the field at the moment you can expect to see them running faster than anyone else and they'll soon catch up. I imagine they may well recruit some pattern heavy hitters to add credibility to their offerings. Eventually we'll probably even see people who think that Microsoft invented the whole concept!

In the meantime though, to have their most public .NET (and anti-Java) effort held up as an exmaple of how not to do things, as this article, PetShop.NET: An Anti-Pattern Architecture does, must be embarassing. It's an interesting look at the patterns used in Microsoft's PetShop.NET implementation. The issues have been raised before, in particular by Clinton Begin in discussing his JPetStore implementation, but it's good to see it as the main focus of an article. Though PetShop.NET performs better than the original EJB PetStore it may weaken Microsoft's overall argument in the end because of the poor design it demonstrates.