|
Head First Design Patterns (Head First) [ILLUSTRATED] (平装)
by Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, Kathy Sierra
| Category:
Java language, Software development, IT, Technology |
| Market price: ¥ 448.00
MSL price:
¥ 418.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Written in a typically Head First refreshing style, this is one of the easiest to read and absorb among the major reference sources for design patterns. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 15 items |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
This book is one of the best books on Patterns. I recommend everyone interested in improving their design skill to read it. The authors did a great job making the book very informative and at the same time funny and easy to read. You are pretty much guaranteed to start writing better code after reading this book. |
|
|
Slavisa (MSL quote), Serbia
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Soon after the Gang of Four published their book about basics of Design Patterns, I bought the book and read it very carefully. About that time I was busy doing other engineering work so I could not put the patterns in immediate use in some practical project. Maybe that contributed to my troubles understanding it.
While reading the GoF book I found it very complicated to memorize the pattern. After reading so many books on programming, so many technical and other books every year in several decades in the past, I thought I have a very strong and sound learning techniques from books. But GoF book simply was out of my reach from some reason. The problem was this: when reading about a pattern, I could understand every sentence, every paragraph, and most of the time the whole chapter about that particular pattern; but it seemed hard to keep in mind that pattern, and soon afterwards, I could hardly implement the pattern in my programs. It was as if you are keeping the slippery fish in your hands, and just when you think you caught it, it slips from your hands back into the water.
Finally after this book (it is still in reading) I found what I was searching for:
1) the crystal sound explanation of Design Patterns – why you use any of them;
2) what is important and what is not important in pattern. Actually the authors of HeadFirst does not speak much about it explicitly, but when they explain the pattern you do not have to think what I was constantly thinking when reading GoF book: what is the most important part of the pattern and which part of pattern can be changed for specific use. With HeadFirst book you get the right measure of all parts of pattern explanation.
3) I could memorize, reproduce and implement the patterns with ease!
Second, the book is astonishingly new, refreshing and perfect in the presentation sense. It is full of pictures and with hand-written comments. Everybody who was ever involved in the presentation material would tell how hard is to achieve such a great presentation level with so many diverse visual effects and putting them in perfect shape like this book achieves. I think this was the problem for one of the very rare reviewers of this book to give this beautiful book such a bad grade. I think he was wrong to falling under the first-impression opinion and misjudged the book greatly.
The truth is the Head First Design Patterns deserves the highest possible marks – I do not give it only 5 stars, but I give it the Oscar for Design Patterns. And that is final even before I read the last page of it. Authors of this book, if you ever read this comment here is the message for you: my sincere complements for your hard work, you has been terrifically good, and I mean it! |
|
|
An Indian reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
My goodness this book actually teaches you how to think in terms of Object orientation and design patterns
I have never seen a better book on design pattern; it makes expert out of novice (OK fine it makes you comfortable with design patterns)
Ok I would say this book is well written is really cool
Once you finish this book; you will find a lot of buzz words (news letters) from Heinz M. Kabutz, Bruce Eckel, and other java Gurus will start making sense. (Kool you will find GOF easy to read)
Clearly explains fundamental Design patterns, and provides a deep in-sight into the working of each patterns
I think what -ever ones level of programming experience and irr-respective of language used one should buy this book.
All well said this book is pretty slow to read and some times you find the authors are too verbose and you find your self not having enough time to finish this book.
Probably the authors could have omitted some very elementary materials and I would like a book of this calibre to be read faster
I find moving between pages are bit slower and examples could have been more computer science oriented (Say GOF used a editor for explaining patterns)you happen to get to a pattern much faster (Thinking in terms of ducks & pizza's are fun but doesn't sink in fast enough). The authors could have explained more about design patterns embedded into java API's.
The head-first series approaches the topics in terms of
Clear-cut explanation +Simple examples + Work-book style of exercise (you might find it vaguely similar to Schaum's series kind of approach That u happen to use in college- Hope some one inspirered by this review writes 2000 solved prob in design pattern's )
The best way to read this book is to use it as a work-book style of reading (Writing), so buy a pack of pencils and fiddle with the examples.
Well solve all the problems provided in the book, thankfully they are simple and doesn't much of your time. (Answers are available in the book for most of the problems)
But any way as I said this material is explosive I would like to thank the authors for writing such a wonderful book.
I would wish that the authors will write a book on the following topics
Head-First Object Oriented Analysis and Design
Head-First J2EE Design –patterns. |
|
|
David Veenemann (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Unlike a lot of people, I don't care much for this book's "irreverent" sytle. I think it masks some shortcoming in the examples it uses. But once you get past that, this is still the best introduction to object-oriented programming that I have read.
HFDP is not just about design patterns. It's a great introduction to object-oriented programming. The book does a great job of explaining the benefits of OOP over traditional procedural programming, and it explains OOP very well in terms of the most commonly used design patterns.
Now for the bad news. The examples are rather lightweight. They do a pretty good job of illustrating the concepts presented, but the code is in no way real-world. For example, if you are looking for which pattern to use to organize a UI (the "Mediator," "State," and "Composite" patterns), with sample code, you won't find it here. The patterns are discussed, but they are used to create quacking ducks (really).
While that's by-and-large a shortcoming of the book, the code is so simple that non-Java programmers (like me) should have no problem using the book. The code samples are very basic, and should translate with little difficulty into .NET languages such as C# and VB.
One other item of note - this book contains a pretty good chapter on Model-View-Controller architecture, which seems to bedevil a lot of people. If you can get a handle on MVC, then you can pretty much do OOP.
In short, this is probably the book I would recommend as an intro to OOP. If you are under the age of 30, you will probably like the examples of quacking duck simulators and java-enabled gumball machines. For everybody else - it's worth looking past this book's insufferable cuteness if you are getting started in OOP. |
|
|
W. Sanders (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Most computer books generally skip or just brush by explanations of why a certain set of coding practices are important. Better than any book I've seen in computing, this book tackles a complex topic and drives home the importance of why a given pattern is important. Rather than "do this because we know it's good for you", this book drags the reader through an information maze, constantly nuding the reader's involvement with a series of zany and not-so-zany exercises. The humor is both campy (with the Andy Hardy era photos) and hip. However, it's not superflous or off point. Everything in this book has been woven together into a fine collection of explanations, exercises and examples, the likes of which I've never seen.
The care given to how everything ties together is remarkable, and while some may snort that the book is too cartoony, I found it to be otherwise. (It's like saying that the New Yorker is too cartoony.)
Most important is that this book worked for me. I didn't breeze by it on a single read, but rather I went over it again and again, finding new nugets with each read. Granted, I often didn't do all of the little exercises, and I'm poorer for it. Also, I sometimes skipped the DP Guru exchanges with "grasshopper" (if you've never seen re-runs of Kung-Fu with David Caradine, you may miss the reference), but I still was able to create design patterns - and in ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0; not Java, the language for which the book was written.
So if you want to lean Design Patterns and learn how and when to use them, this book is solid gold. |
|
|
James (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
I had a project where design patterns were being thrown about and I lacked the vocabulary to communicate with my colleagues. This book got me into the game. I think the key to this book is not just their approach (used in all the Head First series), but also the fact that they explain their approach. If you buy into doing the exercises, puzzles and whatnot, the book is pretty effective. |
|
|
Atul Bhoite (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
This book is definitely not the patterns Nirvana, and it may not make you the patterns guru, but it sure is a great book, extremely well written to welcome the beginner to the world of patterns. I first tried reading the GOF book (Eric Gamma, John Vslides...) - certainly a bible but a heavy read and especially so if you are just getting started with design patterns. Not this one! It really introduces some of the basic concepts very well to lead you to understand how the patterns came into being and then goes forward to drill the pattern into your head. The new approach to technical writing is fantastic and does the job. Once I master this book and practice the patterns, I am sure I will be able to move to the next level and maybe I will be better able to understand the GOF bible which I learn is a must read for any serious techie! You do have to be a little imaginative to figure out which pattern can be used where, in real world designs. The examples are very easy to understand but that makes them a little bit too simplistic for an implementation in the real world. Would have liked a section that lists out some usages in real world - my only recommendation. Other than that, this book will get you up and running quickly with patterns! |
|
|
Walid Magd (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
In collage, I remember entering the office of one of my great professors Dr/Eng Moustafa Hamzah who were teaching us quantum physics and the theory of relativity at that year. I found him holding a book about quantum physics with the word "Introduction" in its title and I asked him why he is reading an introduction on a subject he is considered one of the highest authorities in it in many countries? He replied me saying "It uses an interesting approach which will help me better explains it to you guys". This was my first meeting with the word "approach" and after I read the book and compared it to the text book we used to use, I started realizing the importance of the approach in transitioning the brain from the Huh? to the Aha! in the learning process.
Like most of developers out there, I started my patterns journey with the GOF bible. While it is a great book, it is not an easy read for sure, even in the eyes of its authors as it was clearly stated in the intro- duction when they said "Don't worry if you don't understand this book completely on the first read. We didn't understand it all on the first writing!" Head First Design Pattern's authors took the challenge of presenting a complex subject in an easy to follow and understand, simple and interesting way and they delivered on their promise. Don't, mistakenly, confuse simplicity with ease. The subject is still Software Design Pattern which is, by nature, not an easy subject. The authors didn't try to make it easy by over simplifying it and barely scratching the surface. They just introduced the subject in a new approach that sets a new standard for teaching and presenting hard concepts in such a way that your brain will not only make the transition from the Huh? To the Aha! more quickly and comfortably but also will retain these concepts for long time to come.
All of the new comers to Design Pattern are extremely lucky to have this book to start with. The examples are in Java, but any C# developer, like me, will have no hard time at all following and understanding the code and the concepts. If you are thinking of getting your feet wet with patterns, don't start anywhere else. Save your self lots of long nights and few, unnecessarily, lost hair by reading this book first. Don't take my word for it, just stop by any book store and read the first chapter which explains the Strategy pattern. You will immediately know what I am talking about. I will take this chance to thank the authors and the whole organization behind this book for the great work and the extreme pride they took in producing it. I only wish there are more, lots more, of this series on the shelf. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
This book absolutely rocks! I truly have a passion for software develop- ment, but I find most books to be just plain dry and boring. This book takes a light-hearted and fun "Sesame Street" type approach to teaching design patterns. If you want to learn more about this subject and have fun doing it, you won't find a better book! It's not only fun, the examples make it very easy to understand the core concepts of design patterns. You won't find this type of approach in the Gang of Four book or Sun's "Core J2EE Patterns" book. If I were designing a computer science curriculum for a university, this book would be required reading! |
|
|
Gary Evans (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
I got involved with design patterns in 1995 with the GoF book. I have learned them and used them on numerous consulting projects, and I feel I understand them pretty well. Recently I was asked to teach a Design Patterns course. The course material was excellent and very comprehensive, but I felt I needed an complementary approach for teaching that was a little lighter than the student manual. I picked up the Head First Design Patterns book, and started reading it on the flight to where I was teaching. The time flew by, and so did the pages. When I got off the plane I had read almost 300 pages. It is a really easy read. I was seriously impressed with the quality of the book's coverage, and its really excellent examples to motivate why and how each pattern can be useful. As an object modeler and architect I see way too many examples of developers using either the wrong pattern, or using a pattern just to say "I used the Strategy pattern!". The GoF book is the "bible" on DPs, but this Head First book is a superb introduction for beginners, and for veterans like me to learn something new. At the end of that DP class, several students shared that they had tried to get through the GoF book but just couldn't stay with it. After I showed them several of the examples in this book, they said they were eager to read the GoF book to get more depth. |
|
|
|
1 2 | Total 2 pages 15 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
