Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide 1st Edition
Eric Freeman (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
Bert Bates (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
Elisabeth Robson (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |



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There is a newer edition of this item:
What’s so special about design patterns?
At any given moment, someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. And, chances are, someone else has already solved your problem. This edition of Head First Design Patterns—now updated for Java 8—shows you the tried-and-true, road-tested patterns used by developers to create functional, elegant, reusable, and flexible software. By the time you finish this book, you’ll be able to take advantage of the best design practices and experiences of those who have fought the beast of software design and triumphed.
What’s so special about this book?
We think your time is too valuable to spend struggling with New concepts. Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First Design Patterns uses a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.
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From the Publisher
What you’ll find in Head First Design Patterns, 2014:
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The core design principles and design patterns—everything you need to take your programming skills to the next level. |
The same great visual explanations and brain-friendly learning style you’re used to from Head First, with exercises and challenges so the design patterns really sink in. |
Updated code! The code for all the examples and exercises now compiles and runs with Java 8. |
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Eric Freeman recently ended nearly a decade as a media company executive, having held the position of CTO of Disney Online & Disney.com at The Walt Disney Company. Eric is now devoting his time to WickedlySmart.com and lives with his wife and young daughter in Austin, TX. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Yale University.
Elisabeth Robson is co-founder of Wickedly Smart, an education company devoted to helping customers gain mastery in web technologies. She's co-author of four bestselling books, Head First Design Patterns, Head First HTML and CSS, Head First HTML5 Programming, and Head First JavaScript Programming.
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.
Kathy Sierra has been interested in learning theory since her days as a game developer (Virgin, MGM, Amblin'). More recently, she's been a master trainer for Sun Microsystems, teaching Sun's Java instructors how to teach the latest technologies to customers, and a lead developer of several Sun certification exams. Along with her partner Bert Bates, Kathy created the Head First series. She's also the original founder of the Software Development/Jolt Productivity Award-winning javaranch.com, the largest (and friendliest) all-volunteer Java community.
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Product details
- ASIN : 0596007124
- Publisher : O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (October 1, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 694 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780596007126
- ISBN-13 : 978-0596007126
- Item Weight : 2.29 pounds
- Dimensions : 8 x 1.4 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Java Programming
- #8 in JavaScript Programming (Books)
- #10 in Object-Oriented Software Design
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Eric is described by Head First series co-creator Kathy Sierra as “one of those rare individuals fluent in the language, practice, and culture of multiple domains from hipster hacker, corporate VP, engineer, think tank.” Professionally, Eric recently ended nearly a decade as a media company executive—having held the position of CTO of Disney Online at The Walt Disney Company. Eric is now devoting his time to WickedlySmart, a startup he co-created with Elisabeth Robson.
By training, Eric is a computer scientist, having studied with industry luminary David Gelernter during his Ph.D. work at Yale University. His dissertation is credited as the seminal work in alternatives to the desktop metaphor, and also as the first implementation of activity streams, a concept he and Dr. Gelernter developed.
In his spare time, Eric is deeply involved with music; you’ll find Eric’s latest project, a collaboration with ambient music pioneer Steve Roach, available on the iPhone app store under the name Immersion Station.
Eric lives with his wife and young daughter on Bainbridge Island. His daughter is a frequent vistor to Eric’s studio, where she loves to turn the knobs of his synths and audio effects. Eric’s also passionate about kids education and nutrition, and looking for ways to improve them.
Elisabeth Robson is currently co-founder of Wickedly Smart (wickedlysmart.com) where she is creating new brain-friendly learning products.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
Top reviews from the United States
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I highly recommend this book to anyone who's learned the basics of object oriented programming and is looking to move to the next level.
The book is highly entertaining as well. My only wish is that I had found it sooner!
This book collects all of these patterns in one place, including some that I haven't used, and then explores and explains them from a variety of perspectives.
The book is a collaboration between technical experts and experts in learning theory. The result is that motivation for learning the material is thoroughly integrated into the formal content. Rather than just describing the "what" of a pattern, the book starts by dialoguing with the reader about the "why," so that by the time it gets into the "how" in more depth the reader is interested enough to explore all of the nuances of the various approaches to applying the technique. It attempts to anticipate objections the reader might raise regarding the importance of a given pattern, while at the same time throwing light upon the pattern by showing how it addresses real needs.
The presentation and examples are superior to most other books that I've read. There's a fair amount of repetition, but from different perspectives, so that at least one of the facets presented should resonate with the needs and experiences of the reader. In its presentation of the decorator pattern, for instance, the first example was a concocted coffee cost computation program that left me feeling that a critical aspect of that pattern, the building of more specialized functionality by wrapping more basic and fungible functionality, had not been adequately explored. But they followed up immediately with a real-world example from the java.io package that not only explored that aspect of Decorator, but also referenced code that I had already personally encountered and understood.
Another praiseworthy aspect of this book is the way in which it integrates general design principles like programming to an interface (rather than to an implementation) with more specific patterns like the Strategy pattern. This gives the reader a lower level base to fall back upon if a specific pattern cannot be found, or if an existing pattern needs to be specialized for a particular purpose.
This book arrived while I was designing a new application, and upon scanning through the various patterns for additional places within my application where patterns could be applied, I found a couple right away.
All in all, this book represents a raising of the bar for content, presentation and pedagogy in a technical manual.
Top reviews from other countries


That understanding was wrong.
It is written at the level of a five-year-old. It is interspersed with imaginary 'conversations' between two participants that authors have invented: this makes it difficult to follow. This is not a text book: it is more of an illustrated novella - and the illustrations are cartoons rather than informative diagrams. Even worse is the fact that there is more comic font than necessary / useful.
I have finally decided that 'taking up space on the book shelf' is not a good reason to hang on to it - it's off to the book charity.

This book was exactly what I was looking for.
It envolves you from its beginning and keep you reading about design patterns, object oriented principles, rubber ducks, MVC, ... until the end of the book.
An excellent way to learn GoF's design patterns, the quality of the content keeps on really high until the last page, something very difficult in these kind of books. Funny, straight forward, clever...
I've read the original Design Patterns book by Erich Gamma, and honestly, it was very difficult for me to understand it. Now, after getting a clear vision about design patterns thanks to Head First Design Patterns, I'm going to give it a go again..
Looking forward to reading another book from Head First series.


This book is the answer. The GoF style-books, whilst technically outstanding, are incredibly hardgoing. This book, with its focus on teaching and learning makes the whole experience self-rewarding.
If you want to learn about design patterns, my advice would be, get an excellent grounding from this book, and then tackle the GoF tomes.