Head First Design Patterns (Head First) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
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Rating:  244 reviews
Sales Rank: 1359
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 676
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 8 x 1.7
ISBN: 0596007124
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1
EAN: 9780596007126
ASIN: 0596007124
Publication Date: October 25, 2004
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Product Description
You're not alone.
At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun.
You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them, how to use them (and when NOT to use them). But you don't just want to see how patterns look in a book, you want to know how they look "in the wild". In their native environment. In other words, in real world applications. You also want to learn how patterns are used in the Java API, and how to exploit Java's built-in pattern support in your own code.
You want to learn the real OO design principles and why everything your boss told you about inheritance might be wrong (and what to do instead). You want to learn how those principles will help the next time you're up a creek without a design pattern.
Most importantly, you want to learn the "secret language" of Design Patterns so that you can hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions his stunningly clever use of Command, Facade, Proxy, and Factory in between sips of a martini. You'll easily counter with your deep understanding of why Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory is so often misunderstood, or on the real relationship between Decorator, Facade and Adapter.
With Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show. Best of all, in a way that won't put you to sleep! We think your time is too important (and too short) to spend it struggling with academic texts.
If you've read a Head First book, you know what to expect--a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First Design Patterns will load patterns into your brain in a way that sticks. In a way that lets you put them to work immediately. In a way that makes you better at solving software design problems, and better at speaking the language of patterns with others on your team.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 239 more reviews...
 Great starter book to design patterns September 8, 2008
Serkan Berksoy (Istanbul)
This book is very exciting and cleverly designed. It teaches with great examples and emphesize every detail with humorous content which helps you to memorize. I really believe in this way of learning methodology instead of heavy books which I have covered most of the serious patterns in one week on my vacation. Now I'm back home and I'll code some examples about all of them.
 First glance may resembles a comic book, but ... August 19, 2008
Manish Arora (SW Engineer)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
At first glance this book resembles a comic book, and this may persuade you to put away the book. I recommend that you go through the first chapter and make your decision.
In reality as SW Engineers while designing a system we consider a set of requirements required to meet current deadline. We also attempt to think through several permutations and combinations of these requirements that may be required in future. Often, we fall short in conceiving all that is need to meet future requirements.
This book walks through such scenarios and at times points out how to design software while mitigating such changes to minimal in future releases.
At times some examples present a simplistic approach. Also I would have liked to see some performance analysis while comparing one approach with other.
Accessible and immediately useful August 1, 2008
XPSD
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
[Reviewed by XPSD member Ryan Shiffer]
My previous experience in studying design patterns has been met with failure. I have tried getting through the Gang of Four book on design patterns, but reading it for me was about the same as reading the dictionary. Reading this book made the experience of learning design patterns an enjoyable experience instead of a literary root canal. Head First Design Patterns takes the most useful (and understandable) design patterns and makes them accessible to the everyday programmer.
Each chapter tackles one or sometime two related design patterns and creates a rich example to explain it with. Some examples are a little contrived, but they do the job to explain the patterns with real code. Along with this are lots of discussions and other interesting exercises to hold your attention. These help to further explain the pattern, some of the pattern's pitfalls, and where and when it is appropriate to use the pattern.
Along with introducing design pattern, this book reinforces object-oriented design principles and best practices. This proved to be a useful addition to the design patterns and helps root them in the larger picture of object-oriented design. I found myself immediately applying these principles and design patterns in my coding and reviewing older code where I "thought" I was using design patterns correctly.
Wow, never seen it put this way July 28, 2008
Samuel A. Ekong (Riverside, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you couldn't get your head around the original patterns book before, then this book will change that notion very quickly. It delivers on it's promise and you remember what you read - now that's a bonus in the very fast paced world of software engineering. Highly recomended if you seriously care about your software design.
Very good book July 22, 2008
Mr. N. Sharma (London, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm relatively new to Design Patters. Prior to reading this book I had read several other material on the web trying to get my head around design patterns and although that material was helpful, it didn't fully clarify to me the intent and usages of these patterns. However, when I read a sample chapter of this book online (on the Decorator Pattern), I instantly took a liking to it. The book has a very good way of explaining everything step by step and in a way that will make the topic more interesting to grasp.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is new to the subject and wants to learn Design Patterns. This book (as even the authors mention) is not meant to be a reference book for professionals who already know about patterns. I think it's more suited to people who want to learn them from the ground up. I would give it 10 stars if I could.
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