Rating: 
Summary: Applied Computer Experiment
Review: What makes this book so fascinating and useful is the fact that patterns and frameworks are discussed in the context of a thriving real-world development project. I read a comment by a famous mathematician recently which basically said that anything not related to "pure theory" is trivial. Personally, I think it's the other way around: Any theory that is not applied in the concrete is "pure fancy"! This book bridges the gap between theory and practice. It encourages the reader to experiment and learn about using patterns and frameworks in a realistic environment. In other words, you might actually come away with something useful. :) I highly recommend this book and would like to note that there are study groups popping up around the country for people interested in collaborative study. You can find out more on the ace-users@cs.wustl.edu newsgroup.
Rating:
Summary: Deep Patterns
Review: With so many patterns books out there written by little pikers who've probably never worked on a codebase of more than a thousand lines, this is a gust of fresh air. The first volume in this series is one of the great patterns books. The only knock I could offer on this book is that it is slanted a little toward the net equivalent of a kernel mechanic: in this day and age of the container as king, not many of us are doing thread locking on sockets (thank you Sun!<g>). That said, these are intelligent examinations of patterns that are very realistic. I just reread the section on asynchronous notification mechanisms and the trade-offs between implementing a 'double observer' and other variations and was struck by the degree to which the material had been thought through and all the logical dependencies intelligently communicated. If you want to see what patterns look like when they are in the hands of seriously bright people, not some book junk of the month JC dropout, tune in here.
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