Design Patterns, best resource?

I just bought the SCJD assignment and am anxious to get started. I know which areas I need to brush up on. RMI, MVC, etc. One of them is design patterns.

Question: Which is the better book for design patterns? The infamous book called Design Patterns (ISBN 0201633612)? Or Head First Design Patterns (ISBN 0596007124)?

Hi William,

I can recommend the first one.

Head First Design Patterns is really really really easy to read...

If you're new to Design Patterns, get the Head First.

The first one is a must read at some stage in your software development life. However the second book is probably the best to buy if you are new to design patterns and want to get going on the SCJD right away.

Originally posted by Mark Smyth:
The first one is a must read at some stage in your software development life. However the second book is probably the best to buy if you are new to design patterns and want to get going on the SCJD right away.

I can comment only on the first book as I havent read the other.

I agree. We must read the first one - Design Patterns. I did because I cant take it anymore. I keep seeing references to that book everywhere.

Also, you will notice that the authors of that book are still active in the community, e.g. Eclipse project, Extreme Programming, etc.

So you see, you will get haunted if you dont read that book.

[ April 27, 2007: Message edited by: Jesus Angeles ]

I ended up buying Head First for two reasons: easier to read, focuses almost exclusively on Java. So far so good, this book has already changed my thought process on OO programming.