Head First Design Patterns

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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 paddle 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

 Excellent book. Easy read., 2010-02-21
Excellent book. Reads very easily. The authors try to engage both sides of the brain as much as possible and are concious about the fact that the subject matter can get rather boring. This book is actually rather fun to read.

 Great Mentor/Apprentice dynamic, 2010-02-08
If the Gang of Four book is "too academic", this book might be for you. It walks you through most of the GoF patterns in a Mentor/Apprentice in "real world" applications (not really, but the apps are quite simple and to-the-point). One sample "application" is simulating a Gumball machine using the "State" pattern, adding features, etc. Then the corporate directors want to monitor ANY gumball machine state remotely using the "Proxy" design pattern.

Not only does it walk you through examples of when you would use this pattern, it compares and contrasts them to each other in quite ingenous ways. For example, multiple times it uses a "Dr. Phil" talk show that invites two similar design patterns to sit down and discuss (argue?) why they are better than the other.

Also, it has exercises that let you utilize different areas of your brain to help you learn, utilizing the different ways people learn (e.g. visual, mechanical, etc.).

It also touches on OO concepts and how these are different (or othogonal to) design patterns.

Negative comment: uses Java and various Java libraries to help implement various patterns. While this is definitely great if you are a Java programmer, it may hinder novices who do not understand that C# or C++ or FORTRAN might not map well to these Java libraries. However, if you understand what these libraries provide (and give you ideas on care-abouts for your own implementations), you can work through the examples easily, with the caveat that your implementation language is not Java.

 A must for design patterns, 2010-02-02
If you need to quickly master the fundamental object oriented design patterns this book is a very good choice. Written in the usual Head First style, is a very easy to follow way to master the traditional GOF patterns.

 Un libro obligado para todo programador, 2010-02-01
Como su nombre lo indica es un libro cuyo tema es específicamente los patrones de diseño.
La mayoría, por no decir todos, los libros y referencias de internet que he leído acerca del tema suelen ser textos muy aburridos que a decir verdad más que permitirle al lector aprender acerca de los patrones de diseño lo que terminan haciendo es dejar la amarga sensación de que la mayoría de los patrones de diseño son un tema reservado solo para los más experimentados desarrolladores. Error! los patrones de diseño son unas herramientas que deben hacer parte de la cultura general de todo desarrollador, desde el más novato hasta el más experimentado.

Este libro logro enseñarme que los patrones de diseño no son un tema complejo, sino que realmente son un tema muy agradable al que se le puede sacar mucho provecho en todos los proyectos donde uno se vea involucrado.

Mediante sencillos y divertidos ejemplos el libro muestra casos en los cuales es conveniente utilizar un patrón determinado. Los autores realizan un excelente trabajo al introducir al lector de manera gradual en los diferentes aspectos que componen cada patrón llevándolo desde implementaciones realmente sencillas hasta las subsiguientes situaciones mas complejas donde pueden llegar a verse involucrados varios patrones a la vez.

Aunque el libro esta principalmente orientado a desarrolladores de lenguaje Java, lo cierto es que esta escrito de tal forma que el lenguaje de programación que se utilice termina siendo casi que un accesorio, y para mi como desarrollador de C# resultó sumamente fácil y sencillo adaptar cada uno de los ejemplos a mi lenguaje favorito.

Para quienes no han tenido la fortuna de conocer los libros de la serie Head First,creo que esta es la perfecta ocasión para conocerlos, si bien para el que no los conoce, estos libros pueden parecer como tontos y poco serios, lo cierto es que están diseñados no para ser solo un montón de teoría inútil sino por el contrario están diseñados para estimular el aprendizaje entregando la información con los elementos que nos hacen más fácil aprender y memorizar:

Buen Humor
Imágenes llamativas
Ejemplos sencillos fáciles de digerir
Teoría ??? si pero solo lo necesario, no un tratado internacional para eruditos.

Les recomiendo a todos que lean el libro y por supuesto les recomiendo que lo compren, hay cosas que merecen hacer el gasto, sino tienen mucho dinero en la página de O'Reilly tienen la en la opción de adquirir una copia legan en PDF, de verdad que la inversión es muy poca comparada con los beneficios que obtendrán.

 Engaging, plenty of pictures, retained knowledge., 2010-02-01
I purchased this book after reading some chapters of the Head First: Object Oriented Analysis and Design book. I've always wanted to learn more about patterns. I have one of the definitive books on patterns but it is had to grasp. Although that books provides examples of the patterns with certain problems/solutions, it does a poor job of diagramming the thought process. Head First does a great job of adding to the knowledge foundation to start thinking about why a pattern is necessary, and why it works. I've already used two of the patterns as I was learning them.

The downside to this book is that it does not have as much coverage in the patterns. Other books are needed to supplement it. However, the knowledge retained is invaluable.