This book introduces several design patterns using finance as an example. The book is pretty thin for a $50 book, and can be read in under a week easily.



I would recommend this book to MS/PHD students who want to become quants, but did not read the GoF book yet. Overall, the book is not too bad, if you are willing to spend $50 on it(library?).



The author delivers books like hot buns, which does not look good to me. Quality beats Quantity.



Pros:

+ the code is clean and easy to read

+ covers Monte Carlo and Trees, also Excel briefly

+ the explanations are clear

+ the material progresses from easy to hard nicely



Cons:

- high price

- source code is not readily available, you would have to download it from different sources, and it will differ from the book, no makefiles

- no big projects for the reader

- PDE & interest rate models are not covered at all

- no discussion of greeks for some reason

- some important patterns are not covered

- no errata