The Design Patterns Smalltalk Companion

This isn't a Smalltalk translation of "Design Patterns." Instead, it's a companion to that book. You'll need to read the first one to get the most out of this one. If you have read the first one, you'll find this one is better written and really casts essential light on some of the GOF material. The Smalltalk aspects of this book are really a non-issue (except perhaps showing static-typers how many hoops you don't have to use in Smalltalk). This is required patterns reading.

This book gives you a better understanding of the patterns than in its original version (the GoF one). I am not a SmallTalk programmer but a 9 years C++ one. At work I had to use the GoF book and never liked reading it. In contrast to this, the SmallTalk companion is easy to read and you can understand the patterns within the first few lines of their description. Take the Bridge pattern and compare their discussions in the two books. If you really like the Gof one then buy it. But according to me, it would be a big mistake buying the GoF in favour of the SmallTalk companion. Trust a C++ programmer :-)

I found this an exellent book. The original design patterns book drew its examples from C++ applications. I could see a use for the patterns in C++, but I thought most of them would not have been necessary if the code had been written in Smalltalk.This book did an excellent job of showing how and where the patterns could be used in Smalltalk applications. The authors also extended and clarified many of the pattern so that they were simplier to understand. The book is more than a companion to the GOF book; it is an enhancement of it.

I bought this book because a person in my study group is asmalltalker and had it. I am primarily a Java programmer, but when Iread a pattern in this book, I flipped!I found that the discussion of the problems that the patterns are designed to solve are really helpful, as well as a discussion as to how the pattern actually works to resolve the problem.The code examples were not so useful to me, but after all, I don't know Smalltalk. Even the C++ programmers I work with read discussions from this book.In all a very useful tool to help understand the 23 GoF patterns.

I've read the original Design Patterns several times and always felt like I was missing something. I don't know C++, and honestly don't want to learn it. Patterns are supposed to simplify coding; how could they when they seem so complex? I now understand that Patterns ARE simple; it's C++ that's complex (compared to Smalltalk). This book is much more than a rehash of the old text. It clearly explains the Patterns, showing TRUE Smalltalk implementations with all the variations you could want. Great care is taken in explaining how Smalltalk features change the implementation and usefulness of the Patterns. Now I get what everyone has been raving about.