"To build some patterns, I had to become a little less of a purist and just use the available tools. That change in mindset opened some more possibilities."

For developers focused on performance and clean code, this is a difficult hurdle.

It's difficult to accept that you don't have much control over the HTML markup of the elements that you're trying to make unique.

And another problem with patterns is that the user has to do everything manually. It is somehow counter-intuitive to think of a pattern for "Latest episode", when the user will have to manually update the block after every published post.

But it is true. The more I play with blocks and patterns, the more my mindset shifts towards them.