Gang of Four and Head First

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

(gang of four)

• Erich Gamma
• Richard Helm
• Ralph Johnson
• John Vilissides

They are often referred to as the GoF, or Gang of Four. More than 500,000 copies have been sold in English and in 13 other languages.

Central to this book is a catalog of 23 design patterns that have seen successful practical application and are representative of good object-oriented design.

Head First Design Patterns: [your brain on design patterns]

• Eric Freeman,
• Elisabeth Freeman,
• Kathy Sierra,
• Bert Bates,
• Kathy Sierra,
• Bert Bates

With "Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show.

I (and many others) claim these cookbooks filled with delicious recipes for software construction success as a staple of modern software engineering.

Design patterns such as MVC, Adapter, Facade, etc. is now common among developers at the local users groups.

You NEED to know these patterns to talk to other software engineers in the wild, especially the Java types.