Gang of Four: n.

(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.’