Bookshelf Classic: Design Patterns
This is an odd book. It is a classic, yet among the least useful books in my library. The authors Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides, affectionately referred to as the "Gang Of Four," wrestled with Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) to produce a catalog of solutions. Inspired by the pattern languages used in architecture -- notably by architect, design theorist, and professor, Christopher Alexander -- they worked to imbue software development with the same formality, benefits, and gravitas of the age-old discipline. To some degree, the "Gang Of Four" succeeded. They explored and reinforced a working vocabulary regarding software design such as Model View Controller, Singleton, and Factory. Unfortunately, they also promoted jargony and academic terms such as adapter which is better known as wrapper, observer for publisher/subscriber, and compositor and composition for formatting classes. OOP, while still popular, is waning, yielding to both new styles such