The other weekend I was at the bookstore buying a journal for my wife when I happened upon a book called Head First Design Patterns. This book caught my eye first because it had "design" in the title. After I picked up the book, I quickly was intrigued by the writing style and teaching approach being a writer and all. Then as I dug deeper into the book, I realized 2 things: 1) this wasn't a book for designers and 2) this book was really for java developers. Being a writer, design enthusiast, and user experience dude (and as an employee of Microsoft), I first thought to myself that I needed to put this book down immediately...I was definitely the wrong audience.
BUT THEN I REALIZED...there is real value in this book, if not simply for the teaching style. And then I realized even more that even though this may be about java development, basic design patterns are quite universal. So not only can I get the teaching approach value out of this, I can also pick up some understanding and "shared vocabulary" that will now help me communicate effectively with developers--say, I'm really meetin' them halfway by learnin' this stuff.
Later that week at work, I began to receive emails about the new Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. At this point, I'm wondering if I've just been blind to all this "design pattern" talk or if it was just that it was picking up steam in the Web design/dev world as we move towards more Web standards. Maybe shared design patterns and standardization are one of those bridges between developers and designers? I'm still not sure I know the answer to these questions, but maybe you can help me out? Until then, I'll keep doing my research and studying up.
As a result of all this "enlightenment", I now have a folder in my Inbox dedicated to design patterns discussions & info!!
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