|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
Review
Book 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.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Patterns Book for the Rest of Us,
By yukondude (Yukon) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Head First Design Patterns (Paperback)
Oh sure, we've all got the Gang-Of-Four Design Patterns books on the shelf, right up there next to Knuth. I'd yank down my dusty copy whenever I needed to look up what a fellow coder meant by Facade or Visitor. (Actually, the short description of the patterns on the inside front cover usually was enough to fake my way through the rest of the conversation.)In contrast, I charged through Head First Design Patterns in all of about two days. It was my first exposure to the breezy diagram- and photo-laden Head First series. You could consider the non-text portions to be just so much tree-killing fluff, but I found them a pleasant respite from what is, at heart, a pretty dry subject. There were more than a few times during my reading that I sat back, whistled, and said aloud, "so that's how that works." The book covers the most common patterns from GoF in an incremental order. I was disappointed that some patterns were lumped in the last "Leftover Patterns" chapter because I would've enjoyed the authors' take on them, particularly the Flyweight pattern, a personal fave. Examples are illustrated using Java. That's definitely an improvement over the templated C++ in GoF, but it does illustrate a failing: the old-school object-oriented languages like C++ and Java needed patterns to solve common problems. The latest batch of OO/functional languages like Python and Ruby have little use for some patterns, and add new patterns all their own. For instance, what use is there for an iterator pattern in Ruby that uses closures to loop? Why bother with factory patterns in languages with first-order functions and class objects? That opinion aside, patterns are still an everyday matter for the OO practitioner, and Head First Design Patterns is a superb introduction to them.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Never learned so much so fast,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Head First Design Patterns (Paperback)
While I think it greatly helps that this book happens to fit my skill level perfectly (I know everything it assumes I know, and I don't know most of what it assumes I don't know), it is really amazingly well designed as a learning tool. There are some books (like the GoF book that this is based off of) that are such an unbelievable chore to absorb, requiring a monumental effort to get anything out of, but Head First Design Patterns is built specifically to avoid that exact problem.Normally, we see low-level books that are written in an accessible manner, with high-level books written pretty much ignoring accessibility, leaving the reader to fend for himself. But it doesn't have to be that way. Head First Design Patterns is a high-level book written to be accessible. You will be floored by just how fast you can read this book, and just how fast you can learn what it teaches.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding book for beginners and experienced alike,
By C. Parker "ironring" (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Head First Design Patterns (Paperback)
Head First Design Patterns is an outstanding book. I first encountered this book when a friend loaned me his copy when I was in a bit of a time crunch. My first thought was "oh, man, I've got no time, and this book is HUGE!" Well, after 5 minutes of reading, I knew that I had jumped to conclusions. The Head First books are really good at conveying their subject matter, and do so quickly. Personally, I really think in terms of analogies, and when I am explaining something to someone else, I use analogies to get my point across. After reading Head First Design Patterns cover to cover, I don't think I could point to another book that is better tailored to my (and I hope your) kind of thinking. I've already used several of the chapters to help out with specific projects. Don't let the fact that this book is aimed at Java Developers. You can just as easily apply it's contents to C++ or any other object oriented language. Heck, I've even implemented some of the patterns in plain-old ANSI-C (i.e., a non-OO language), with great results (there are many books out there on how to implement objects in a non-OO language). If you are doing much code development, either as a student, hobbyist or professional, I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Computers & Internet > Computer Science > Systems Analysis & Design
- Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Java
- Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools
- Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Object-Oriented Design
- Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Software Development
- Books > Computers & Internet > Software
- Books > Computers & Internet > Web Development > Programming
- Books > New & Used Textbooks
- Books > Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 > Computers & Internet
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
|
