Rating: 

I detest the Head First series, I think for good reason. They think they have advanced pedagogical concepts to offer, but they offer mainly an attitude and a vernacular. The cutting-edge the concept that variety in the presentation will make your brain "worried that the unusual thing you see might be a tiger," thus paying attention and absorbing more. But to be unusual, it needs to vary. Instead, their is a formula that starts out a little unusual (and much too cute) and becomes repetitive in the way they fault other books for being.

On top of this, the examples used in the material are poor. Though I did learn something about the patterns used, I found it frustrating that the examples were cute in the same way the presentation style is cute, rather than making sense. The Decorator pattern uses an example that no one would actually program with. Though the concepts make some sense, the example is not logically structured, and you end up not feeling you have a good sense of why the pattern would help because you fault the fundamental organization of the example.

The editors of this series need to revisit the premise of the series, and ensure that the content meets O'Reilly standards. The Head First books I have read fall short