OK, I have GoF. I have EAS2. I have J2EE Core Patterns, I have several others. I’ve downloaded, printed out and read more pattern tutorials than I care to think about. Sure, I kind of got it. But I didn’t really GET it. I don’t USE patterns when I’m creating a new project, though some might end up in there as if by accident. Mostly I sit down to read this stuff and wake up with design patterns pasted to my cheek with my own spit.
This weekend I noticed this book in the store: Head First Design Patterns. All I can say is, I am getting it! This book rocks. It’s as easy to read as a “Dummies” book, but not so…. dumb. It’s humorous, fun to read and most of all, you come away really understanding the patterns. You’ll probably find yourself cringing at the example projects they start out with (the bad-code, “before” examples), because you’ve probably done the exact same things. Then they walk you through it as you clean up the mess and transform it into something really elegant.
It’s written for Java, but you should have no problem whatever porting it over to AS2. Most of the conversion is just moving the types to the other side of the variable names. The rest of the code you can almost copy and paste.
In 24 hours I made it through Stragegy and Observer, and while I kind of had an idea of what they were before, they are now part of my thinking process. No doubt I’ll be using them. If you’ve been struggling with patterns, this book will save your life. (Buy it from the above link and I’ll get a nice fat gift certificate at the end of the quarter! Then I can buy some more books to sell you on.)