The Patterns Handbook: Techniques, Strategies, and Applications

If the 20-some patterns of object-oriented programming in the GOF book have whetted your appetite, and you either are ready to move beyond those or have already moved into the patterns that capture the expertise of other domains, you'll want this book. The book is a simple yet powerfully useful tool for finding patterns suitable to a wide range of problems. Though the book was intended to be used primarily as a well-annotated index to patterns that have appeared elsewhere, the annotated entries in this book themselves are often enough to get you off top dead center. Even for its use as an index to the sea of patterns out there, this book is an excellent investment. The book is a treasure of good ideas useful to most software designers, and it might be just enough to give you that edge the next time you do design. I use it to find related patterns when I write patterns -- something that convinces me that this book should be on every pattern writer's bookshelf.

I found the book to be very helpful in establishing how patterns in software engineering began. Although some of the chapters (by the way, this in an anthology) were a little dry, there is definitely value to have read this background material.

This was the first patterns book I read, and I found it a very useful overview of a wide range of topics from many different perspectives. It isn't meant to be a catalogue of patterns.The quality of the chapters is not consistent, as would be expected from such a wide range of authors. But the material is generally very accessible and useful.