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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.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Elisabeth Freeman | | Paperback:
| 678 pages | | Publisher:
| O'Reilly Media | | Publication Date:
| November 01, 2004 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0596007124 | | Product Length:
| 9.18 inches | | Product Width:
| 8.02 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.33 inches | | Product Weight:
| 2.72 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.7 inches | | Package Weight:
| 2.78 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 342 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 342 customer reviews )
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221 of 241 found the following review helpful:
 Best way to learn Design PatternsNov 10, 2004
By Jack D. Herrington
"engineer and author"
At first I didn't understand how they would apply the Head First formula to design patterns. I'd read two head first before this one and I was impressed with those so I took a look and now, not only is it clear how they approached the topic, it's also clear to me that this is the best way to learn design patterns.
The Gang of Four book laid out the basics. Here is the pattern, here are some examples. The head first book goes a lot further. They show you good and bad examples of the pattern. They give solid reasoning behind the pattern. It's great.
There are times when I would look at a piece of code and have the author explain to me that it was based on one of the GoF patterns. I would come away thinking, if that's the pattern, then that pattern sucks. It's clear that patterns can be misapplied. So understanding the the how design patterns are applied, and how they are commonly applied wrongly, or to an extreme, is just as important as understanding the basic mechanics of the pattern itself.
The example code is in Java, but I think this is an ideal book for anyone passionate about patterns.
86 of 92 found the following review helpful:
 Insufferably cute, but a very good intro nonethelessApr 02, 2006
By David C. Veeneman
Unlike a lot of people, I don't care much for this book's 'irreverent' sytle. I think it masks some shortcoming in the examples it uses. But once you get past that, this is still the best introduction to object-oriented programming that I have read.
HFDP is not just about design patterns. It's a great introduction to object-oriented programming. The book does a great job of explaining the benefits of OOP over traditional procedural programming, and it explains OOP very well in terms of the most commonly used design patterns.
Now for the bad news. The examples are rather lightweight. They do a pretty good job of illustrating the concepts presented, but the code is in no way real-world. For example, if you are looking for which pattern to use to organize a UI (the 'Mediator', 'State', and 'Composite' patterns), with sample code, you won't find it here. The patterns are discussed, but they are used to create quacking ducks (really).
While that's by-and-large a shortcoming of the book, the code is so simple that non-Java programmers (like me) should have no problem using the book. The code samples are very basic, and should translate with little difficulty into .NET languages such as C# and VB.
One other item of note--this book contains a pretty good chapter on Model-View-Controller architecture, which seems to bedevil a lot of people. If you can get a handle on MVC, then you can pretty much do OOP.
In short, this is probably the book I would recommend as an intro to OOP. If you are under the age of 30, you will probably like the examples of quacking duck simulators and java-enabled gumball machines. For everybody else--it's worth looking past this book's insufferable cuteness if you are getting started in OOP.
224 of 254 found the following review helpful:
Irreverent, fun and educationalNov 09, 2004
By Eric Wuehler
Usually when reading through a book or article on design patterns I'd have to occasionally stick myself in the eye with something just to make sure I was paying attention. Not with this book. Odd as it may sound, this book makes learning about design patterns fun.
The first thing you notice is the pages are not paragraph after paragraph of information. There isn't a single page that doesn't contain a doodle, a sidebar, a picture, or something different. While at times it can be a little distracting, it's in a good way (at least I don't have to poke myself with something sharp anymore).
The chapters cover various design patterns and along the way have exercises such as crossword puzzles or match games to test your understanding. The answers are also included at the end of the chapters - so you don't need to purchase a "Teacher's Edition" on the black market. =)
Other books on design patterns are saying, "Buehler... Buehler... Buehler..." while this book is on the float belting out "Shake it up, baby!"
24 of 24 found the following review helpful:
The quality is evident!Jan 01, 2007
By Patrick Thompson
Head first books tend to polarize readers I feel: you either love the unique methodology of the books or you hate it. They are extremely visual, often hilarious, and require you to do various activities to engage more fully with the content. This is similar to the traditional teaching methdology in mathematics: motivating example -> theory -> example -> your turn. This I find as a teacher, is a strong (pedagogical approach) methodology, particularly if you can make it fun, interesting and engaging. I, like the masses, like Head First Books (I have Servlets & JSP as well as this one. I have also read tracts of Java).
Anyway, that aside, the book provides a solid inroduction to selected design patterns- it doesn't cover all the GoF patterns. It contains (in order)
* Strategy
* Observer
* Decorator
* Factory
* Singleton
* Command
* Adapter and Facade
* Template
* Iterator and Composite
* State
* Proxy
* Compound Patterns
* Living better with Patterns
If you have no experience with patterns, I recommend this as a good Intro to the MasterWork by the GoF-> Design Patterns, Elements of reusuable Oject-oriented software IBSN: 0201633612. From personal experience, I found after reading the Head First pattern, I could pick up the GoF book, look at the same pattern and understand it with virtually no problems.
I have no hesitation recommending this book, if you like the Head First way, championed by Kathy Sierra. If you don't like apparent frivolity (I say apparent because there is an ulterior motive to this frivolity-> engagement. Basically, cognitive psychology says the more deeply you engage, the more you learn, retain and understand), then maybe this isn't for you.
Slight criticism-> you may notice this book uses some 'old' java syntax like using iterators for collections like arrayLists, rather than the new for (object j: collection) and no generics in sight in declaring such arrayLists: they use ArrayList name=new ArrayList(), not ArrayListname=new ArrayList(); But these are 'very' minor criticisms. Likewise, it's usefulness as a comprehensive reference like the GoF book may be questionable. But then, if you approach it as a learning tool and a means to mastery rather than a reference, this shouldn't be an issue (you can always resell it when you're done!).
Anyway, in conclusion, two thumbs up. Read it, do the work, enjoy it and you'll be well on the way to the GoF's MasterWork in design patterns. All the 5 star reviews don't lie! This is a five star book.
As an aside I recommend, in addition to this and GoF, reading Streamlined Object Modeling- patterns, rules and implementation- ISBN: 0130668397 for higher level OO system design (OO system architecture). And just so you don't fell excluded from the vernacular (and didn't know this): GoF=Gang of Four (Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides)
23 of 24 found the following review helpful:
Warmly recommendedMay 27, 2006
By Slavisa Nesic
Soon after the Gang of Four published their book about basics of Design Patterns, I bought the book and read it very carefully. About that time I was busy doing other engineering work so I could not put the patterns in immediate use in some practical project. Maybe that contributed to my troubles understanding it.
While reading the GoF book I found it very complicated to memorize the pattern. After reading so many books on programming, so many technical and other books every year in several decades in the past, I thought I have a very strong and sound learning techniques from books. But GoF book simply was out of my reach from some reason. The problem was this: when reading about a pattern, I could understand every sentence, every paragraph, and most of the time the whole chapter about that particular pattern; but it seemed hard to keep in mind that pattern, and soon afterwards, I could hardly implement the pattern in my programs. It was as if you are keeping the slippery fish in your hands, and just when you think you caught it, it slips from your hands back into the water.
Finally after this book (it is still in reading) I found what I was searching for:
1) the crystal sound explanation of Design Patterns – why you use any of them;
2) what is important and what is not important in pattern. Actually the authors of HeadFirst does not speak much about it explicitly, but when they explain the pattern you do not have to think what I was constantly thinking when reading GoF book: what is the most important part of the pattern and which part of pattern can be changed for specific use. With HeadFirst book you get the right measure of all parts of pattern explanation.
3) I could memorize, reproduce and implement the patterns with ease!
Second, the book is astonishingly new, refreshing and perfect in the presentation sense. It is full of pictures and with hand-written comments. Everybody who was ever involved in the presentation material would tell how hard is to achieve such a great presentation level with so many diverse visual effects and putting them in perfect shape like this book achieves. I think this was the problem for one of the very rare reviewers of this book to give this beautiful book such a bad grade. I think he was wrong to falling under the first-impression opinion and misjudged the book greatly.
The truth is the HeadFirst Design Patterns deserves the highest possible marks – I do not give it only 5 stars, but I give it the Oscar for Design Patterns. And that is final even before I read the last page of it. Authors of this book, if you ever read this comment here is the message for you: my sincere complements for your hard work, you has been terrifically good, and I mean it!
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