Design Patterns
Design Patterns by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissidesby Erich Gamma and John Vlissides and Richard Helm and Ralph Johnson and Johnson, Ralph
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 21 software engineering books by recommenders
Recommended for teaching reusable object-oriented design vocabulary and solving code design problems. Critics say some patterns are dated, tied to C++/Java as of 1994, or overused.
Recommended for teaching reusable object-oriented design vocabulary and solving code design problems. Critics say some patterns are dated, tied to C++/Java as of 1994, or overused.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Core ideas still relevant
“I think the GoF has aged well (controversial opinion I know!).”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Patterns.dev” “remains highly relevant and useful in the generalities”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Agent design is still hard” “Most underlying technology is timeless”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “The cleaner: One woman's mission to help Britain's hoarders” Useful for solving design problems
“Recently helped me solve a non-obvious code-stink design issue.”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: Time to read those programming books?” “among the most professionally useful courses I ever took”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Patterns.dev” Well-regarded, professionally useful reading
“among the most professionally useful courses I ever took”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Patterns.dev” “I've worked through ... Design Patterns”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Breaking the Spell of Vibe Coding” “A very good book, besides the GoF one”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Patterns.dev” Principles remain useful beyond its era
“remains highly relevant and useful in the generalities”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Agent design is still hard” “it wasn't pointless to say it back then”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Saying Goodbye to Agile” “Most underlying technology is timeless”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “The cleaner: One woman's mission to help Britain's hoarders”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Overused, forced onto every problem
“the problem is every single person I know who was exposed to the book, try to hammer every problem into one pattern”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “Laws of Software Engineering” “some doofus has red too many "Gang of Four" "Design Patterns OOP" bullshit books and gone to town”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “"Clean" Code, Horrible Performance”
Other software engineering books people recommend
The four most recommended other software engineering books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mythical Man-Monthby Frederick P. Brooks | 56 | 3 | 95% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Designing Data-Intensive Applicationsby Martin Kleppmann | 37 | 1 | 97% | 12 | — | Approved |
| A Philosophy of Software Designby John K. Ousterhout | 28 | 1 | 97% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Code Completeby Steve McConnell | 14 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Design Patternsby Erich Gamma and John Vlissides and Richard Helm and Ralph Johnson and Johnson, RalphThis page | 12 | 3 | 80% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Recently helped me solve a non-obvious code-stink design issue.”
“some of the principles might be out of date, wrong, or overkill”
“some doofus has red too many "Gang of Four" "Design Patterns OOP" bullshit books and gone to town”
“everyone used patterns after skimming through the GoF book without even knowing why”
“the problem is every single person I know who was exposed to the book, try to hammer every problem into one pattern”
“it wasn't pointless to say it back then”
“I've worked through ... Design Patterns”
“Most underlying technology is timeless”
“I want a lifespan refund for the amount of time I spent learning UML and Design Patterns”
“I think the GoF has aged well (controversial opinion I know!).”
“Some patterns in the GoF book only apply to C++/Java as they were in 1994”
“A very good book, besides the GoF one”
“among the most professionally useful courses I ever took”
“remains highly relevant and useful in the generalities”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.