Product Description

• Capturing a wealth of experience about the design of object-oriented software, four top-notch designers present a catalog of simple and succinct solutions to commonly occurring design problems. Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves.
• The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6338 in Books
• Published on: 1995-03-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Design Patterns is based on the idea that there are only so many design problems in computer programming. This book identifies some common program-design problems--such as adapting the interface of one object to that of another object or notifying an object of a change in another object's state--and explains the best ways (not always the obvious ways) that the authors know to solve them. The idea is that you can use the authors' sophisticated design ideas to solve problems that you often waste time solving over and over again in your own programming.

The authors have come up with some ingenious ways to solve some common vexations among object-oriented programmers. Want to build a page-layout program that embeds inline images among characters of various sizes? How about building a program that converts files of one format to another? Chances are, some programmer already has thought of a better solution than you will and the recipes you need are here. Solutions are presented in generalised diagrams of data and logic structures. The idea is that you can take the concepts presented here and adapt them--in whatever language you use--to your individual situation. You may have to read some of the chapters several times before you fully understand them, but when you find a solution in this book, it will make your job easier and your results more elegant. --Jake Bond

From the Back Cover

Capturing a wealth of experience about the design of object-oriented software, four top-notch designers present a catalog of simple and succinct solutions to commonly occurring design problems. Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves.

The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently.

Each pattern describes the circumstances in which it is applicable, when it can be applied in view of other design constraints, and the consequences and trade-offs of using the pattern within a larger design. All patterns are compiled from real systems and are based on real-world examples. Each pattern also includes code that demonstrates how it may be implemented in object-oriented programming languages like C++ or Smalltalk.

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About the Author

Dr. Erich Gamma is technical director at the Software Technology Center of Object Technology International in Zurich, Switzerland. Dr. Richard Helm is a member of the Object Technology Practice Group in the IBM Consulting Group in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Ralph Johnson is a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Computer Science Department.

John Vlissides is a member of the research staff at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York. He has practiced object-oriented technology for more than a decade as a designer, implementer, researcher, lecturer, and consultant. In addition to co-authoring Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, he is co-editor of the book Pattern Languages of Program Design 2 (both from Addison-Wesley). He and the other co-authors of Design Patterns are recipients of the 1998 Dr. Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Award.

Customer Reviews

a must-read that is also a must-rewrite
This book is compulsory reading with no real competition.

However it's very badly written. People often mention (without complaining? ) of what a lot of hard work this book is. In fact almost all the patterns are easy to grasp, but rubbish explanations in conjunction with inconsistent use of terminology and weak examples obscures each pattern to the extent that the reader's brain soon falls out of their head.

I can't point to any one example in the book since they are all as bad as each other. But re-reading the visitor pattern finally inspired this diatribe.

I can't understand how these guys have got away with it. It's absurd. There must be an unimaginable number of people who have given up on Design Patterns due to this book, seminal or not. What a shame. The value of patterns is almost incalculable.

If only Odell & Martin or Martin Fowler would condescend to give us something readable!

Required Reading
As you will have guessed from the other reviews this is required reading but if you do find it hardgoing I'd recommend reading "Design Patterns Explained" which is a lighter introduction ("Applying UML and Patterns" by Craig Larman is also useful for this).

Once you get the patterns, and more importantly once you understand why they are good designs, I would recommend looking at "Pattern Hatching", "Agile Software Development (2nd edition)" and "Refactoring to Patterns" which cover the use of patterns.

You're going to have to buy this book sometime
The book commonly referred to as just "Design Patterns" begins with an introduction to Object Oriented Programming and continues with a catalog of design patterns. I wouldn't recommend this book as your first OOP book, but I believe that once you have a basic understanding of OOP, you can try to cope with some of the basic Design Patterns in this book. If you are an advanced OO programmer, it's helpful to just quickly review any pattern you're about to implement and examine possible implementation issues.