Customer Reviews

C# 3.0 Design Patterns

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

On one hand I like the book, I feel the layout and presentation of each pattern is well done, concise, yet you can grasp the main point of each pattern. Each pattern is explained, implemented, further examples are given, uses are explained and then each pattern is wrapped up with a series of exercises.

On the other hand, the book has many typos, the exercises are a very mixed bag and sometimes the explanation are incorrect or incomplete and it is hard to understand why the author really did what they did or the full implications. This really is a mar on an otherwise solidly presented book. The errors did make me dig into the details and I did learn more from my digging. So, if you are willing to work around these warts than you will learn something but for a beginner the level of frustration may not be worth it. For example the Observer pattern blog example, which uses events with a dictionary was not explained in enough detail. If you looked, you would have found something along the lines of the MSDN article "How to: Use a Dictionary to Store Event Instances (C# Programming Guide)" but you had to look for it.

This also applies to the C# 3.0 features that are presented in the book, again citing the example above. The Mediator pattern has a sidebar on delegates and events and it explains in a very high level what you need to know to implement events stored in a dictionary but unless you use sources outside the book you will be missing out on a lot.

The exercises are varied, some are excellent and they really force you think about what the pattern is about and sink your teeth into the details. Others just seem like they are there to fill space, others do not seem thought out well enough. For example in the Decorator pattern one of the exercises asks you to decorate System.Console but you can not do it using the methods presented. You can use a wrapper but that is not really decorating, so you are left wondering what the real intent was or even worse did you miss some key point.

So overall, even though the book does have warts, it definitely useful, you will learn about the GOF design patterns and come away with some useful knowledge on C# 3.0 and beyond that. I would suggest using the book with a critical mind, try to pick apart the examples and experiment with them, test the authors claims and find the mistakes. My impression is that this book needed another revision and some sections feel like they were in the process of being revised but the book was shipped before the process was done.

If I could I would give the book 3.5 stars, it is still very useful but the warts are painful and coming from O'Reilly that is disappointing. Some have mentioned the "Head First Design Patterns", also by O'Reilly. I have to say that if you want to learn design patterns from a Java perspective I would probably recommend that book instead.

BTW, A previous reviewer had claimed the Observer pattern example did not work but I did not have any problems getting that example to work.

The publishers at O'Reilly have been putting out consistently high-quality technical books for a long time. Judith Bishop's "C# 3.0 Design patterns" is no exception.

In a nutshell: If you think the 23 classic "Gang of Four ("GOF") design patterns have value to you as a programmer, and you want to move your programming expertise into the future, then this book is for you.

Bishop has the credentials to pull this off: she is a computer scientist specializing in the application of programming languages to distributed systems and web - based technologies, and has books published in six languages. She is also a chair or member of numerous international conference committees and editorial boards.

What C# 3.0 Design Patterns does is to analyze all 23 GOF programming patterns with expert commentary and "real life" (e.g. Web 2.0 style) programming examples, and put them directly into the C# 3.0 idiom - using Generics, LINQ, and most all of the newest C# language features in a practical guide to solving common programming problems with an emphasis on what each programming pattern can do for you as a programmer in real life.

Bishop provides pictorial and UML illustrations of patterns, quizzes that relate the illustrations to the UML, "theory" code that can be adapted to real-world programming issues, tables providing guidance on when to use a specific pattern as a solution, lists of pattern advantages and disadvantages, and challenges / exercises to help you take your expertise further.

Are classic programming patterns useful to you? The answer lies in where you are at in your programming adventure. If you are just starting out, this book is probably too advanced for you.

If you already understand the C# programming language and have some introduction to Patterns under your belt, this book will be very exciting to you as it opens up the field to completely new possibilities. You'll see some "pretty slick" code examples in this book and even if you only ever end up using one or two of them, you will have certainly gotten your money's worth. Recommended for intermediate - to - advanced C# developers.

This is a good rehash of the Gang of Four patterns, reworked in C# 3.0. The book's fairly concise and most patterns are clearly laid out with a simplistic example to demonstrate the basics of the patterns followed by a more detailed example in a semi-real world implementation.

The articles are nicely done, there are a good set of exercises about each pattern, and there are some good comparisons between similar patterns. As an example, there's a bit comparing the Builder and Abstract Factory which details that a Builder is concerned with how things are built while an Abstract Factory is concerned with what is built.

A couple things bothered me in the book, namely the lack of a clear overall summary of patterns, and an annoying batch of sidebars on fairly basic concepts. While each pattern has a summary of when you would use it, you're forced to dig through the entire book looking at each pattern trying to figure out if it will solve a problem for you. A consolidated list of the uses of each pattern at the start or end of the book would have been a great help. Regarding the sidebars: do I need a patterns book to lay out fundamental concepts like accessibility modifiers or indexers? These detract from the book's main purpose, which isn't to teach C# 3.0, but show how patterns are done in C# 3.0. Sidebars specific to a pattern's C# 3.0 intricacies are OK, but the fundamentals should have been left out.

Those annoyances aside, I found the book to be a good read and a useful addition to my bookshelf.

I bought several copies of this book to teach my development team design patterns. I have a copy of and like the Head First design patterns book, but my guys wanted to learn some of the new C# 3.0 features and judging from the other reviews I thought this would be a decent book.

Boy was I wrong. Do not trust the positive reviews. The examples and coresponding code samples are flat wrong. I don't mean code won't compile, I mean they don't teach the purpose of the design patterns or blatently defeat the pupose of them. I am only up to chapter 3 and I am having to create cheatsheets that show how the patter REALLY should work. If anyone is reading this and really wants to learn the design patterns, I would recommend the Head First or the original Gang of Four books. Beware, if you don't know design patterns and use this to learn you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

I found this book to be a very good treatment of the GOF patterns. The content is well organized and has a very clean feel to it.

I think there would be 2 primary audiences. One would be those that have study the GOF patterns, but want to see them implemented with the latest C# functionality available. The other would be those that have never before studied the GOF patterns and want to learn about them. I think both audiences should know the C# 3.0 language and syntax before reading this book, or at least be willing to learn C# 3.0 while reading this book.

Although the author claims this is a the book will guide you through the new C# 3.0 language features, they are only really listed. The side bars are enough to send you off looking for the right thing to learn, but you won't learn it with the content in the sidebar. As long as you are willing to go outside the book to learn the new C# 3.0 features, this book will serve to point them out.

Each pattern is broken down into 7 parts- Role, Illustration, Design, Implementation, Example, Use, and Exercises.

I think the author does a great job at communicating the intention of the patterns. She makes good use of graphics and UML diagrams. She also makes you put some thought into the patterns by offering mini quizzes.

The author also has a nice support site which has the code available and a lot of good information about patterns including the UML diagrams from the book. The code is very well organized and is very usable.

All in all I think this is a great C# GOF Patterns book and would recommend it to anyone that wants to learn to implement the GOF patterns with the latest C# language features available.

This concise, well-organized and clearly written book helps readers understand design patterns -- a architectural concept that has been adapted in recent years to become an invaluable tool for software developers. The engaging and informative illustrations which begin the chapters that discuss each design pattern help relate everyday concepts to the intricacies of software. For example, novice programmers would often make use of Facade patterns; blogs are examples of Observer patterns; and social networking systems such as Facebook are examples of Proxy patterns.
Clarity is a crucial quality of this valuable book, which stands out from others on the topic by embracing the most modern programming language features, explained in sidebars with definitive references back to the new C# 3.0 standard. Deploying numerous illustrations, quizzes, diagrams, exercises and tips, Bishop has succeeded in making that standard palatable, in contrast to the indigestible length and density of Microsoft's document.

I was disappointed with this book. The author does not use standard C# coding; it looks more like Java. Her code examples use inappropriate global variables. I couldn't get the Observer example, which uses C# delegates and events, to work unless I used a global event variable. Bad form in my opinion. Visual Studio is not used to leverage the coding.

I was far more satisfied with Head First Design Patterns, even if the examples were in Java. I learned a lot converting them to C#.

I am a software engineer with 7 years of active development in C# and a big fan of the GOF book and design patterns in general. Not only are the examples in the book confusing and misleading but the explanation of the patterns is very confusing too. The C# coding style is also very poor and the use of the new C# 3.0 features looks most of the times forced in place just to make use of them on every single pattern, what confuses even more the explanation of the pattern itself.

As with all books on patterns, I had high expectations from this book. I was really hoping that the author would have introduced new patterns utilizing new 3.0 language features that I have not yet thought of on my own, but was disappointed to see that the book is mostly another poorly written book on design patterns that happened to use C#.

After realizing that the book was what it was, I was hoping that she would have done something a bit on the cutting-edge side of things by fusing new C# 3.0 language constructs and design patterns, but again, disappointed. The application of C# 3.0 features throughout the book seemed to be more of a showcase ("hey look what I can do") as opposed to practical or necessary.

If you understand that this book is just another patterns book and doesn't introduce new patterns or really take advantage of new C# 3.0 language features, this book is ok. On a positive note, the book is a simple read. But if you're looking for a really solid book on patterns for the bookshelf, the gang of four patterns book (1994) is still the way to go.

I bought this book because Eric Lippert mentioned it on his blog (he is one of the reviewers and wrote the foreword) and I'm a big fan of Eric's work. I guess reviewing a book is not the same as writing it! I started with a deep interest in both topics (C# 3.0 and design patterns) as well as (too) high expectations and I got fairly quickly disappointed by the lack of innovative ideas in the proposed implementations and the somewhat superficial use of C# 3.0.
The code lacks consistency as if it was written by different people with different level of expertise, the layout (of the code) is far from perfect with a few irritating typos. Sometimes the lengthy explanations about the implementation cover trivial matters while unnecessarily confusing bits are just taken for granted.
There is even one suggestion that made me fall from my chair, page 170 in the Chain of Responsibility and Command pattern: storing information in the numerical value of enums! What a convoluted idea for no practical benefit (apart maybe saving 4 bytes of memory) and a potential nightmare for maintenance.

Overall, all the ingredients for a good book, but you might have to wait for the second edition (if it ever gets that far) to make it worth it.