Head First Design Patterns

"When I first saw the book, I was skeptical because of the diagrams and cartoon-like cover and inside pages. Text is at a minimum in Head First Design Patterns, with most of the book consisting of diagrams, pictures, Java code snippets, and just a bit of text scattered throughout. But by the time I finished reading three chapters, I was enjoying the visual approach the authors took. The book is written with a sense of humor and feels more like a conversation than a lecture. That's not to say the book doesn't have valuable content - it is just focused content presented in a nontraditional manner... Freeman et al., present 12 patterns in detail and briefly introduce another nine at the end. Overall, I enjoyed how Head First Design Patterns was written and found myself flipping pages and absorbing the combined visual and textual content on the new page and not missing the good old paragraph one bit."
--Gregory Lapouchnian, C/C++ Users Journal, June 2005

"Verdict: Nice! Highly recommended. A fun book about design patterns? It sounds as likely as a fun book on root canal dentistry. But true to form the team behind O'Reilly's 'Head First...' series have gone ahead and produced a design patterns book that is fun to read, full of useful information and makes learning a pleasure rather than a pain...a very practical book, ideal for developers who are interested in making things work rather than in more abstract theorising... In conclusion, this is a great book for introducing patterns and it earns the TechBookReport seal of approval with flying colours."
--TechBookReport.com, February 2005

"Head First Design Patterns, authored by Elisabeth Freeman and Eric Freeman, because of its copious and engaging Java examples and clear pictures, is therefore a breakthrough, making this difficult topic accessible to many more programmers. What is also impressive about this book is the many discussions on object-oriented design principles, such as encapsulation, inheritance, coupling, delegation, the open/closed principle and many others...The strong point of this book is the clear descriptions of many of the most popular patterns and their applicability to solving real-world software problems. I highly recommend it to any developers who want to put patterns to work in their own software."
--ObjectsbyDesign.com, December 2004

"If there's one subject that needs to be taught better, needs to be more fun to learn, it's design patterns. Thank goodness for Head First Design Patterns. From the awesome Head First Java folks, this book uses every conceivable trick to help you understand and remember. Not just loads of pictures: pictures of humans, which tend to interest other humans. Surprises everywhere. Stories, because humans love narrative. (Stories about things like pizza and chocolate. Need we say more?) Plus, it's darned funny. It also covers an enormous swath of concepts and techniques, including nearly all the patterns you'll use most (observer, decorator, factory, singleton, command, adapter, façade, template method, iterator, composite, state, proxy). Read it, and those won't be 'just words': they'll be memories that tickle you, and tools you own."
--Bill Camarda, from the January 2005 Read Only, The Barnes & Noble Review

Kathy Sierra has been a master Java trainer for Sun Microsystems, teaching Sun's instructors how to teach the latest Java technologies. She is the founder of one of the largest java community websites in the world, javaranch.com. She is also a key member of the development team for the Sun Certified programmer exam and has developed dozens of applications to demonstrate Java technology. Bert Bates is a 20-year software developer, a Java instructor, and a co-developer of Sun's upcoming EJB exam (Sun Certified Business Component Developer). His background features a long stint in artificial intelligence, with clients like the Weather Channel, A&E Network, Rockwell, and Timken.

Introduction

Keeping your objects in the know

Decorating objects

Baking with OO goodness

One of a kind objects

Encapsulating invocation

Being adaptive

Algorithms

Well managed collections

The state of things

Controlling object access

Patterns of patterns

Patterns in the real world