Rating  - Interesting, but not a lot of content
This really is the best book I know for describing the process of applying patterns to an application. It's a definite skill, a definite thought process, and very hard to convey. I do it by setting people specific problems to solve with specific patterns and hoping they develop the mapping for themselves. That usually works, sooner or later.
The first half of this book is like sitting behind Vlissides while he works at the keyboard, and listening to him talk to himself. It's very informal and conversational. I don't know how well it generalizes to other patterns in other contexts. For some people, though, a concrete example like this seems very helpful.
The second half of the book didn't give me much useful information. It continues the informal, conversational style. This part, however, involves several developers in the process of identifying, characterizing, and sometimes disqualifying candidates for design-pattern-hood. As much as I respect the people in the conversation, that section has a Disney-like fictional quality that I don't like. The old conversations have been reconstructed and morphed into some cleaned-up and picked-over form that reads well. Mostly, they just don't say anything that I can really use.
Seeing an example worked may help some people. On the whole, though, this book has less information per inch of shelf space than many others. Populate your bookshelf accordingly.
Rating  - Excellent! An escential companion of the GoF book
This book is an excellent companion for the GoF book, altough it has "own substance". It is written in a very plain, enjoyable and direct language. It address some extremely interesting issues for patterns interested audience.
It starts analysing the Top Ten Patterns Missconceptions, giving a great view and light on this issue. He groups the misconceptions in 3 groups, being What patterns are, what patterns do and facts about the characteristics of pattern community.
The second chapter gets even better: he copes the design of a Unix like File System design with Design Patterns, using Composite for the Files and Folders, Proxy for the Links, Singleton for users, Visitor for file system commands (he uses Unix cat command as an example), Template Method for single user protection and Mediator for multiuser protection.
Chapter 3 is maybe the best: it goes into some patterns and analyzes where it falls short. He goes into how to kill a singleton, Observer's class and relationship explosion problem (using of course an example!) and how to solution this with an alternative approach with a Visitor. Following, he presents the Generation Gap pattern (which didn't made it to the GoF book) and goes through some other stuff related.
Chapter 4 shows the pattern creation process of the GoF. It is awesome! he tryes to demistify themselves, showing the discussions regarding the Multicast pattern (which didn't made it to the GoF book). He reproduces all the email conversations between the GoF members, showing their pattern creation process filled with great insights.
Finally, chapter 5 offers 7 habits of effective pattern writting.
I've found this book very inspiring. I enjoyed a lot reading it and it gave me the opportunity to see how does the GoF work.
If you enjoyed the GoF book, this is one is for you!!!
Rating - Must read for beginners... good for others
I have read lot of good books on OOAD and patterns like Design Patterns, Refactoring, Analysis Patterns etc. I wish I read this book along with Design Patterns long back. If you are starting new with patterns... read this.... just 150 pages. If the cost seems high, buy an used one.
Rating - Articulate writing, Pleasant reading
The book is using an example of developing an UNIX-like file system to illustrate how the design decision was made, and most importantly, how to choose the right pattern to accommodate the requirement (hatching process).
Composite, Observer, Proxy, Singleton, Factory, Visitor and Template Method patterns were revisited and details were given on how to pick them from the GoF patterns. Even though the classification (Creation/Structure/Behavior) is arguably useful and effective (see POSA I, personally I agree with POSA authors that Structure/Behavior classification would not be too useful in OO design, almost everything fits into these two categories), the author tried to stick to the criteria of the GoF book.
Two new patterns (Generate Gap and Multicast) were introduced. Generate Gap pattern was now broadly used in stub (CORBA, RMI) code generation tool. Multicast pattern is arguably a "variation" of Observer pattern.
In general, the book is very easy to follow and pleasant to read. It does not offer more "insights" to the patterns in GoF book. If you understand the 23 patterns in GoF book, you don't really need this book as a companion.
Rating - Excellent book
This is one book that makes Design patterns look manageable. This book gives insight on the kind of discussions that GoF used to have to decide on a pattern being a pattern. That discussion gives an idea on the kind of stuff a pattern user should ask him/herself when using any given pattern. A particular discussion about Observer vs. Typed message pattern really makes it an enjoyable read. :)
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