Dave Rupert sparked a conversation today about Patternlab after some initial usage, which elicited a nice round of feedback from others.

Brad Frost summed it up nicely:

It's been a process to make Pattern Lab simultaneously flexible and robust

I want to put some thoughts to paper about how this process has played out for me.

Patternlab-PHP was rather feature-rich when I started. I likely missed the conversations Brad and Dave had about what PL should and shouldn’t be. It was simultaneously an amazing living reference, but also a skyscraper to understand, deconstruct and finally rebuild with different materials. Dave Olsen helped immensely in those first steps.

I can feel the desire to turn PL into more than it already is, to turn it into a platform through which an entire project can grow, mature, and finally be deployed. I have also experienced first-hand the complexity that can creep into the solution when attempting to support so many features.

To me, Pattern Lab is:

So, as I reread this, and wonder at which features to implement next against the living spec that is the PHP version, I question what feels missing to me. (Also excited at the prospect of Dave and Brad writing a spec!)

What pain points have I experienced?

As a peripheral member of the community, it’s exciting to see other’s interested in the same problems that drew me to Patternlab too. I’m also excited to see what ground we can make on PL-PHP :)

Originally posted 04/21/14 - Brian Muenzenmeyer - Follow me on Twitter