Mark Miller's Reviews > Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

I got this book as part of a job which had me programming in C++. I found it very helpful in understanding how to effectively use C++ so that it didn't kill me. It provides a vocabulary such that you can deal with data in a metalanguage of sorts, at least among colleagues (not in the sense of metaprogramming).

As time has passed, I've looked at Design Patterns in a new way. The introduction to the book is worth a read, even if you don't quite get the significance of it. If people would only take it seriously, I think that people could begin to get an idea of what a science of computing would really be about. I don't say this to mean that what we commonly call OO is the "path to computer science," but the idea of inventing structures that have broad applicability in applications, and to future efforts to invent more varied computational structures.