Difference between J2EE design patterns and Patterns of Enterprise application architecture [closed]

Question

I am trying to enhance my knowledge in "design" aspects of Software (engineering), and I am more into Java world.

The first thing I came across was GoF book, which as per my understanding is the "core" or "foundation" design patterns (please correct if i am wrong in interpreting it).

I came across the following terms as i try to go in depth for getting the knowledge of design (patterns).

1) J2EE design pattern.
2) Patterns of Enterprise application architecture.
3) GoF patterns.

I am bit confused as to why there are many design patters and which is used when? In particular, what is the difference between the patterns in #1 and #2?

Any explanation in simple words would be of great help.

Answer 1

Just as there are many books on programming, there are many books on patterns; so the simplest answer to, "what is the difference" is: those three books were written by different authors.

1. J2EE Design Patterns, –William Crawford
2. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, –Martin Fowler
3. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, –Erich Gamma, et al.

The GoF book (3) was the first to apply the concept of patterns to software engineering, so in that sense, I think most people would agree that it was the "foundation" for subsequent, pattern-related work.

Do note that architectural patterns and design patterns are separate concepts, as architecture and design represent different levels of abstraction (architecture being a higher level).

Any detailed explanation of when to apply each of these patterns would require a much longer format than SO (hence the aforementioned authors' motivation to publish books) however, most if not all common patterns will have numerous individual threads on SO.

Finally, a key difference in J2EE Patterns is that they are language specific (Java) whereas the other two books are language agnostic.