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Anti-patterns, also called pitfalls, are classes of commonly-reinvented bad solutions to problems. They are studied as a category so they can be avoided in the future, and so instances of them may be recognized when investigating non-working systems. The term originates in computer science, apparently inspired by the Gang of Four's book Design Patterns, which displayed examples of high-quality programming methods. The authors named these methods "design patterns", by analogy with the same term used in architecture. The book Anti-Patterns (by William Brown, Raphael Malveau, Skip McCormick and Tom Mowbray, and more recently Scott Thomas) describes anti-patterns as natural counterparts or follow-ons to the study of design patterns. By formally describing repeated mistakes, one can recognize and refactor broken systems. Anti-patterns are not mentioned in the first edition of Design Patterns, which predated the term "anti-pattern"; however, one of the original Gang of Four authors, the late John Vlissides, offers an endorsement on the back cover.