What are the best free resources to learn design patterns in Java?

Try http://oodesign.com/ You can also try the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern#Classification_and_list) which contains examples in Java.

check out http://sourcemaking.com/ ,it has good tutorials for the design patterns

Let's first start by understanding concepts of design patterns without bringing programming, this will help you visualize and also use these examples as "real world" examples when you actually learn them: http://www.cours.polymtl.ca/inf3700/divers/nonSoftwareExample/patexamples.html Now let's try to understand them in practice and also try some code at the same time. I strongly suggest coding these yourselves - at least important and tricky ones like Decorator or AbstractFactory. You "feel" you know them, but when given a practical situation, you "feel" confused like hell (Both feels are not the same though :). Coming back to point, for each pattern I suggest following sequence: Read about design pattern on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns Watch video of that design pattern at http://www.newthinktank.com/videos/design-patterns-tutorial/ Try to code yourself from example in video, or a different example you can think of. Read about the design pattern at http://www.blackwasp.co.uk/GofPatterns.aspx Why I am suggesting different and so many sources? It will help you clarify your ideas and understand things really clear. Also Wikipedia pages are for design patterns are well done, they are really crux version of the GOF Design Patterns book. And don't skip coding part - that will really help you spot things which your brain misses out. If you are specifically working in J2EE, and even if you are not, do check out http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index-138725.html Some of them might be useful to you and some of them would be good to know. This was free part for next part you will have to pay me 10 bucks (Just kidding), all I am saying is that if you are learning something worthwhile, spend some bucks on some of books listed below. You will read one and you will be tempted to buy others, they are really well done and will help you understand design, design patterns, good coding, architecture and everything in between. I am putting them in order of relevance (From my point of view) to you, so if you like, you can start from first one and then decide on second one and so on. I am listing only three, to keep it short, but I am sure I am missing out a lot of other great works. http://www.martinfowler.com/books/eaa.htmlrchitecture by Martin Fowler http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Java-2nd-Joshua-Bloch/dp/0321356683 http://www.amazon.com/Domain-Driven-Design-Tackling-Complexity-Software/dp/0321125215 Finally do check out some more advice on threads like this: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/124109/is-there-a-canonical-book-on-design-patterns

There are numerous of resources that can be useful to learn design pattern. As it always said nothing is better than a nice book to learn something. I will recommend you to go through http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201633612/?tag=stackoverfl08-20apart it you can also move to other book listed there http://www.fromdev.com/2010/06/5-best-design-pattern-books-you-must.html. Well ! now reverting back to some free resources, you can learn design pattern by online from Safari book at free of cost. Navigate-[ http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/programming/java/0201485397 ] to have a glimpse. you can also check this one http://www.javacamp.org/designPattern/. Apart it, there are 22 tutorial available on http://www.avajava.com/tutorials/categories/design-patterns.

An excellent book Head First Design Patterns with Java. You need firstly to understand Java and UML to read that book. But the book is fun to read. And of course you can find video of that in youtube as well.

Here you can find complete set of commonly used Java patterns with Java code examples: http://qabok.com/java-design-patterns/ Also you can read about TDD Patterns and Anti-Patterns http://qabok.com/tdd-patterns-and-anti-patterns/

https://www.udemy.com/experience-design-patterns/?couponCode=FREEBEE offers a comprehensive course on design patterns in Java.

The best way to Learn Design pattern is by doing a project. Here a nice article which takes a simple customer project and explains design patterns around it. http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1009532/Learn-Csharp-Design-patterns-step-by-step-with-a-p