Friendly Web sites, design patterns, and metacognition

First of all, you just have to love the guys that created these register policies:

Isn't that all what you expect from a Web community member? Who needs lawyers anyway? Before you start laughing, note that JavaRanch gets millions of entries in its forums every month and they have won a Jolt Productivity Award on the Web Site and Developer Networks category twice in a row. When you know that, you are not surprised that these same guys created the Head First book series, of which I started to read Head First Design Patterns today, a book where, for example, the possibilities of the decorator pattern are illustrated in this way:

Does that chap looks like an object decorator or what?  The authors use in funny ways the results of metacognitive research (that is, the research on how people learn), so you will laugh while you learn. Now, the authors write all of their examples in Java (nothing is perfect ), but luckily a good soul already translated the samples to .NET . Recommended reading.