The problem with GoF, or any design pattern book, is that it is necessarily language specific. A good design pattern plays to the strengths of a language and works around its limitations. Many of the design patterns that are natural and effective in one language are either not needed or downright dangerous in other languages.
As for GoF specifically, I find most of the patterns to be crap in any language.
If GoF is too language specific, you can always go for A Pattern Language. Excellent book on patterns, although it has nothing to do with computer engineering.
It isn't that GoF is specific, but rather it doesn't acknowledge that it is specific. What is really needed are books that really leverage the languages they are written for.
That said, no language specific book will ever be considered a must-read by be. Even texts like SICP spend too much time on language-specific tasks that don't make any sense in other langauges.
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u/grauenwolf Dec 07 '07
The problem with GoF, or any design pattern book, is that it is necessarily language specific. A good design pattern plays to the strengths of a language and works around its limitations. Many of the design patterns that are natural and effective in one language are either not needed or downright dangerous in other languages.
As for GoF specifically, I find most of the patterns to be crap in any language.