Customer Reviews
All current comments are valid - By: Sebastien De Salvador, 31 Jan 2008 
Because I was advised to read this book & had good comments about it, I was reallly surprised to see even 1 single negative comment when starting my order process. I therefore started my reading with a sort of bitter feeling i was going to get either bored or over flooded with information.
Anyway, in the end I just want to point that yes it is a must read, but its writing could reallly be simplified. They also tend to repeat things alot, & suprisingly with the same words in a different order, which makes it very confusing, it's like finallly understanding how something works & then looking at it in a mirror... I believe they wrote a very complex algorithm to write more pages ;)
If I could give it 6 stars... - By: M. Gooch, 06 Jun 2007 For the last 5 years I have been writing C++ code, & discovering coding 'patterns' for myself. Each time, I thought that there must be a book out there which documents these 'patterns', & would save me months of work figuring them out for myself. This is that book, & it does not disappoint.
The 23 patterns are built on a set of core principles. I was aware of these principles before, but seeing their application in pattern after pattern has given me a much better & deeper understanding of how & why to apply these principles in my own code.
I would probably have used some of the patterns, some of the time. But after such a clear & deep explanation of each one, I now see opportunities to use the patterns frequently. And in each case, I realise why my code will be better with them than if I hadn't used them.
Reading this book immediately improved my coding skills by an order of magnitude.
This book belongs on the shelf of every C++ coder, alongside Meyers 'Effective C++' & Beck's 'Extreme Programming Explained'.
This is the one the others talk about - By: Justin Taylor, 11 Oct 2006 I read a couple of design patterns books before this one & quickly realised that I need to get this book as soon as possible. The others I've read alll referenced it & as a design patterns catalog it presents patterns in the purest form. It is extremely easy to read in terms of clarity & layout & certainly in a format that will appeal to programmers. Although most examples are either in C++ or SmalllTalk you should have no problem keeping up if you specialise in other languages including scripting languages like PHP5.
Not up-to-date but contains good guidelines - By: Flavio, 24 Aug 2006 
This book was recomended to me during my undergrad degree on computer science; is a milestone of OO Programming, is well written & only a basic skill of OO is needed to read this book.
Unfortunatelly the book doesn't cover modern topic as data persistence, but gives you an overview of the most used general purpose patterns.
must read - By: P. Mason, 21 Aug 2006 This is a good introduction to patterns & also covers some good implementation issues. It is an old book & the language samples show this - but patterns aren't language specific so this shouldn't be an issue if you focus on the concepts & problems the patterns overcome.
