Rating: 

Too many times I've attempted to read articles on design patterns (sometimes from Sun's Java site). Inevitably I pray for a big red button that I could press repeatedly to make sense of the garbage.

About six months ago when the book was published I snapped it up and expected another "oh so fun" read (only a trite bit of sarcasm). However, I was immediately impressed with the writing style that appealed to multiple learning styles. The bizarre and quirky pictures and layouts made the material fun and interesting to navigate. I did not have to suffer through page after page of the same boring technical explanations.

I was able to start using the examples in the book and was soon able to integrate the material I had learned into my own daily projects at work. After a few months of reading and re-reading pieces of the book my projects at work have drastically improved as have my Java architect design skills. This past week I interviewed for and was offered a Java architect position at a very prestigious research lab in upstate NY. I definitely plan to share this excellent design patterns book with my new colleagues when I start my new position next Monday.

I am very appreciative to the entire Head First design team for producing such a fantastic text (part of the real I wrote this review). I very much look forward to upcoming "Head First" texts from O'Reilly.