(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:30 am)
Speaking of Patterns, I picked up a book called Head First Design Patterns at Borders. It’s written to be very informal, and has something of a conversational cheeky tone compared to most programming books; it’s part of their educational philosophy. Sort of like a Mr Bunny book that is actually teaching programming technique. Instead of being a turn-off, I ended up learning something about better Object Oriented Programming design in the first few pages, so I grabbed it. I’d heard about these Pattern thingies, but didn’t think much of them at the time. But they’re useful approaches that work. Like many newbie-ish OOP coders, I’ve implemented / rediscovered many of these principles in isolation; programming patterns have codified the behavior to some degree so you don’t make the kind of conceptual missteps I’ve made in even a relatively simple game. Good stuff.
Hardcore macho programmers probably won’t like this book much, but if you’re looking for a lighter introduction to just the concepts, it’s not bad. The downside is the book is $44.00, which I think is a little pricey for a CD-less book even if it is 600+ pages.
2 Comments
I’ve enjoyed the Head First books I’ve read. I find those, along with O’Reilly’s Developer’s Notebook series, are a nice diversion from standard “here’s everything we know about this” tech books. The basic Java book is what I’m currently recommending to folks trying to pick up the language (I was impressed with the ease with which it describes object serialization, threads, and a few other more “advanced” topics). Their other Java books are exam preps for the Sun certification tests.
Sounds like there is another one I need to check out. :)
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Neat…I’ll have to check those out!