Came across this book while searching our library, for design help, in the middle of a design review cycle.

I have read many books on Design Patterns. The issue is that most of them do not help you internalize the patterns you learned. Most of them just explain the patterns.

By internalizing being able to "trace back" from an object design problem to a pattern. The only three books that helped me internalize the more complex design patterns are Head First Design Patterns, Patterns in Java and this book.

I liked the author's writing style and presentation. The drawbacks of this book ? It does not cover all the design patterns. This books brings out the core concept of Design Patterns, which is "Protected Variations".

Would I recommend this book to a novice in Object Oriented Technology ? No. One has to be familiar with OOA and OOD to appreciate and internalize the value of Design patterns.