[1][2] In August 1993, Kent Beck and Grady Booch sponsored a mountain retreat in Colorado where a group converged on foundations for software patterns.

Ward Cunningham, Ralph Johnson, Ken Auer, Hal Hildebrand, Grady Booch, Kent Beck, and Jim Coplien examined architect Christopher Alexander's work in pattern language and their own experiences as software developers to combine the concepts of objects and patterns and apply them to writing computer programs.

[1] The Hillside Group sponsors the Pattern Languages of Programs conferences in various countries, including the U.S., Brazil, Norway, Germany, Australia, and Japan.

[4][5][6] Since 2006, The Hillside Group has published patterns and conference proceedings through the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library.

Most of the conferences are held annually and encourage attendees to submit papers pre-conference for inclusion in the writer's workshops.