Design Patterns - If you are a OO software developer, and you dont know what "design patterns" are, shame on you! Ifyou have known/heard about them and have tired (really tried) to use it in your projects, and constantly trying to understand them and use them, it is okay! (as I am one of them )

Design Patterns are common solutions to recurring problems faced in OO software. And knowing them will actually keep yourself from spending crazy nights at your computer trying to fix a complex mess of code! The following are the books that talk about these in detail!


Books (3)
1. Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
The Gang Of Four were the first people to categorize, publish, expose design patterns to the outside world in a very BIG way through their book.All the examples in the book are based on C++, and for someone not quite proficient with C++ or new to OO it might be quite intimidating. Also the examples discussed in the book are very technical and sometimes makes it difficult to understand the  patterns.

2. Head First Design Patterns 
This is the  best book I have found personally to explain patterns in a way that can be understood by most of the developers. It is written  by Eric Freeman & Elizabeth Freeman. It is a WONDERFUL book that explains the patterns in a more humorous sort of way with examples based on Pizzas, Ducks, Chocolate factories, Menus etc ....

3. Refactoring to Patterns 
This book is written by Joshua Kerievsky, and  it is more aligned with the Xtreme methodologies, where you refactor your code into patterns ONLY if required. Over using patterns(especially when it is not needed) can make the software more complex then before !! It has examples from production code, and is really a must--have for any OO developer!

The Series
As a starting point to learn patterns, I will be blogging about a Design Pattern every week as part of the "A Design Pattern a week, keeps bad software away" series . The first pattern to be covered will be the "Strategy Pattern"

Hari