Rating: 
Summary: Pattern enlightenment
Review: How many books do you own? Of those, how many do you read very often? And of those, how many have the covers worn off? "Design Patterns Explained" is one of that type of book.Very impressive and fascinating book. Very clear and easy-to-understand; anyone who programs in any language can easily follow the narrative style. Not even mentioning the patterns for a moment, the new perspective on encapsulation, and the explanation of commonality and variability make it well worth the time to read. The idea of using abstract classes to classify concrete objects is very smart, and abstracting out commonalities in implemetation is nothing shy of genius. The patterns themselves are brilliant, of course. There will be many "oh, yeah!" moments reading the book, as if your eyes were opened. The O-O paradigm is reinforced, but also broadened. Current O-O design is made much simpler by the concepts on which the patterns rely, alone. IMO, the reviewer's comments on the back cover about this being an intermediate text are just wrong. There's no need to learn UML first; the book works really well as an introduction to patterns, but it gives you an _extremely_ valuable new perspective on object-orientation itself... for example, instead of just using abstract classes to classify similar objects, you can abstract out the _behavior_ as its own class as well. Then, just include the appropriate concrete behavior object in the original class. This idea alone is worth the price of the book. With this information, AND the design patterns, this book's an automatic "BUY". Advanced O-O programmers will undoubtedly find new insights into design, as well. These guys (Shalloway/Trott) absolutely know what they're talking about. How many books have we read where we thought the OPPOSITE about the author? =)Your designs will become simpler, easier to maintain and upgrade, yet more powerful. If you're frustrated with your design approach on a current project, or you don't know where to begin... pick up this very enjoyable and EDUCATIONAL read. This is one of those that will have the covers wear off, for sure :-)
Rating:
Summary: The best introduction to design patterns!
Review: I loved this book, i recommend it to newbies as an introductory book to "Design Patterns" by the Gang of Four. Actually upon reading Shalloway's book you don't have to read the whole gang of four book, you can use it as a reference, provided you familiarize yourself with basic features of all 24 patterns.
Rating:
Summary: A Different Take
Review: If you're familiar with OOP and are still trying to be sold on design patterns, this is the book. The authors have a very different take on how to teach the subject - learn about object oriented programming AFTER design patterns. And for me, their teaching method worked well. One caveat, this book does not replace Gamma & Co.'s classic. Design Patterns Explained just shows you how to enjoy Gamma.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent explanation of design patterns
Review: As an abstraction of an abstraction, patterns of software design are useful, simple and hard. They are simple in the sense that they describe structure at the most generic of levels, and yet, most problem solving is done at the specific level of one problem/one solution, which makes them hard. The ability to create pluggable software components was put forward as an effective solution to the code reuse problem, but up to now, the results are less than what was hoped. This is largely due to the difficulties encountered when trying to generalize solutions. Many times, it is necessary to substitute flexibility for efficiency and general solutions are hard to create and verify.
Nevertheless, the wise and forward-looking designer must make every effort to learn how to use patterns. While difficult, they are not impossible to learn and this is a case where even a concerted attempt will return value. The lessons learned during any serious study will provide insights into many areas of project design, improving the structure in ways that can be codified and reused.
That is an answer to the "Why study patterns?" question, which leads to the "How to study patterns?" question. The answer to that one is simple, "read and study this book." Most of the patterns in the original "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by the gang of four are examined in simple, straightforward, yet complete detail. In general, I find the explanations in this book superior to those in "Design Patterns." Code fragments in Java are used to demonstrate the patterns and UML diagrams are used to model the classes. This is very helpful, as the abstract solutions are sometimes difficult to follow. Supplemental C++ code is included with some of the patterns for those who don't do Java.
Design patterns are difficult to learn and even the best training materials can only guide you, for learning is a personal thing. We all store and process abstractions differently, so individual reactions to this book will vary. Nevertheless, everyone will find the book helpful and some will find it invaluable.
Rating: 
Summary: a good introductory book on design patterns
Review: This book is very good for those who have basic understanding in object oriented programming but wants to learn design patterns from ground up. It tries to teach readers the spirit of design patterns by analyzing challenges of some simple but reasonable design tasks. It first presents some naive/straightforward designs which do not use design patterns and then tells the readers why and how such designs can be imporved by using design patterns. This seems to be the most intuitive way to learn the necessity and power of design patterns. The author strives to make his text as easy to understand as possible, without intimidating technical jargons. As a result this book is much more approachable for beginers than many other design pattern books. However, the author probably has gone a little too far when he explains things. It seems that at times his arguments are redudent and unnecessarily repeating, just to make sure the reader understands or agrees with his point. Although not a big problem because the reader can always skip unnecessary part, the book could be more enjoyable should it have kept the style more succinct. Another issue is that I feel the author's analogy between patterns in software construction and architecture is sometimes a little bit hard to understand. Apparently one of the reasons could be that I have little knowledge in architecture while the author probably has background in that area; however, I suspect many other readers could also at times get confused by his analogy. Finally some of the most abstract discussions in this book are not quite accurate, precise, or contain terms not well-defined in the context. Again, it could be that I am not an expert in OO so my comprehension is limited, but I feel the author probably can do a better jobs defining the terms he uses and describe precisely the point he is trying to make, because as an introductory book being self-contained is sometimes a valuable feature.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book For Patterns' Beginners
Review: I've finished translating this book into Chinese. I think this book is the best one for patterns' beginners. I saw someone dislike it. And I saw a fellow gives it only one star. Can I say anything? If you feel that there's too few patterns in this book, I suggest you to read "PLoP 2001" instead DPE. Maybe it's your mistake to select this book, not the book. (What's wrong with the book? Shalloway has said in the Preface that there wouldn't be many patterns. Don't you see that?)However, for those developers who aren't good at OOP/OOD and know little about design patterns, this book is the best! These words is not mine. 20th, September, John Vlissides said that "Three books of patterns studying: the first, DPE; the second, GoF; the third, Pattern Hatching." Man who dislikes this book, maybe you should get the third book -- Pattern Hatching. But you, the patterns' beginner, feel free to read this book! Just buy it, just enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Great book right on the subject!!!
Review: I am new to Patterns and found this good for a beginner like me.
This book is very readable! very interesting. You will keep reading it and reading !! And it is right on the topic!
A new Perspective on the Object-oriented design. I liked the
new perspective very much. It shows you what is patterns and
shows the "why" and "how". Thats just great! It is a small book
about 330 pages. But why would read a big book on everything
about patterns??? Learning is step by step! It doesn' show all the patterns but u can alway get another book for more patterns.
It is the basic concpet thats important. And this book is right there.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book For Design Pattern Newbie
Review: A must for somebody moving from traditional OO to Design Patterns. Concepts are laid out in simple, clear, understandable manner.
Rating: 
Summary: Significant lack of substance
Review: OK, OK, granted that I spend my life around design patterns. But I expected a book with the title Design Patterns Explained to explain. Instead it seems to be soft and without many examples. I bought it with the hope that it would help my endeaver to finish a design patterns workbook but found no substance that I could gleam. It also lacks a full coverage of the 23 design patterns in the GOF book. Buy the book if you only want an overview, otherwise go through the pain of the GOF book Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. It is cryptic and hard to grasp but the substance is there.
Rating:
Summary: Great introductory to pattern use! EASY TO READ!
Review: Just recently, I've been doing OO design in a team at work. My OO experience was limited so I always felt that there must be a more standard or cleaner way of writing OO code. This book has been a great review of the OO basics through its use of patterns. It's, very simply, helped me to realize when I have used patterns in my designs and didn't even know it. After reading this book I was able to greatly optimized my designs and probably save tons of time coding. Also, when I look for an introduction book on a subject, readability is the highest priority. This book was easy to understand and read. The author does an amazing job at drawing parallels to design that help shape your train of thought in a positive way. This is a great book for a beginner and I'd reccomend it to anyone starting out.
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