refactoring to patterns

by joshua kerievsky, 2005 (8th printing 2009) 005.16 KER

nice view on a more practical side of design patterns. instead of just looking at an ideal abstraction, this looks at how you refactor toward or away from a particular design pattern, or how you can migrate gradually between them. makes a good point that you rarely are making a dp from a blank slate; even if you are the head project architect, you can only do that at the beginning. once things are underway, or if you're working with an existing codebase, you have to refactor rather than design from scratch. handy tables in the inside covers as a quick reference. i read through chapter 4, to the beginning of the catalog of patterns.

i think i looked into buying this directly from the author's site, and i think you get a complementary ebook when you buy the hard copy.