Large-Scale C++ Software Design [Paperback]

John Lakos (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201633620 | ISBN-13: 978-0201633627 | Publication Date: July 20, 1996 | Edition: 1

Developing a large-scale software system in C++ requires more than just a sound understanding of the logical design issues covered in most books on C++ programming. To be successful, you will also need a grasp of physical design concepts that, while closely tied to the technical aspects of development, include a dimension with which even expert software developers may have little or no experience. This is the definitive book for all C++ software professionals involved in large development efforts such as databases, operating systems, compilers, and frameworks. It is the first C++ book that actually demonstrates how to design large systems, and one of the few books on object-oriented design specifically geared to practical aspects of the C++ programming language. In this book, Lakos explains the process of decomposing large systems into physical (not inheritance) hierarchies of smaller, more manageable components. Such systems with their acyclic physical dependencies are fundamentally easier and more economical to maintain, test, and reuse than tightly interdependent systems.In addition to explaining the motivation for following good physical as well as logical design practices, Lakos provides you with a catalog of specific techniques designed to eliminate cyclic, compile-time, and link-time (physical) dependencies. He then extends these concepts from large to very large systems. The book concludes with a comprehensive top-down approach to the logical design of individual components. Appendices include a valuable design pattern "Protocol Hierarchy" designed to avoid fat interfaces while minimizing physical dependencies; the details of implementing an ANSI C compatible C++ procedural interface; and a complete specification for a suite of UNIX-like tools to extract and analyze physical dependencies. Practical design rules, guidelines, and principles are also collected in an appendix and indexed for quick reference. 0201633620B04062001

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

As a member of the IC Division at Mentor Graphics Corporation, I am fortunate to have worked with many bright, talented software engineers, developing very large systems.

Back in 1985, Mentor Graphics became one of the first companies to attempt a truly large project in C++. Back then no one knew how to do that, and no one could have anticipated the cost overruns, slipped schedules, huge executables, poor performance, and incredibly expensive build times that a naive approach would inevitably produce.

Many valuable lessons were learned along the way - knowledge obtained through bitter experience. There were no books to help guide the design process; object-oriented designs on this scale had never before been attempted.

Ten years later, with a wealth of valuable experience under its belt, Mentor Graphics has produced several large software systems written in C++, and in doing so has paved the way for others to do the same without having to pay such a high price for the privilege.

During my 13 years as a C (turned C++) Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software developer, I have seen over and over again that planning ahead invariably produces a higher-quality, more maintainable product. My emphasis at Mentor Graphics has been on helping to ensure that quality is an integral part of the design process from the very start.

In 1990 I developed the graduate course "Object-Oriented Design and Programming" at Columbia University. As the instructor of this course since 1991, I have had the opportunity to share many of the insights that we at Mentor Graphics gained during our industrial-strength software development efforts. Questions and feedback from literally hundreds of graduate students and professional programmers have helped me to crystallize many important concepts. This book is a direct result of that experience. To my knowledge, this is the first text that identifies development and quality issues that arise only in large C++ projects. I hope that this information will be as useful in your work as it is in mine.

Audience Large-Scale C++ Software Design was written explicitly for experienced C++ software developers, system architects, and proactive quality-assurance professionals. This book is particularly appropriate for those involved in large development efforts such as databases, operating systems, compilers, and frameworks.

Developing a large-scale software system in C++ requires more than just a sound understanding of the logical design issues covered in most books on C++ programming. Effective design also requires a grasp of physical design concepts that, although closely tied to the technical aspects of development, include a dimension with which even expert professional software developers may have little or no experience.

Yet most of the advice presented in this book also applies to small projects. It is typical for a person to start with a small project and then begin to take on larger and more challenging enterprises. Often the scope of a particular project will expand, and what starts out as a small project becomes a major undertaking. The immediate consequences of disregarding good practice in a large project, however, are far more severe than they are for disregarding good practice in a smaller project.

This book unites high-level design concepts with specific C++ programming details to satisfy two needs:

An object-oriented design book geared specifically to practical aspects of the C++ programming language. A C++ programming book describing how to use the C++ programming language to develop very large systems.

Make no mistake, this is an advanced text. This is not the book from which to learn C++ syntax for the first time, nor is it likely to expose you to the dark corners of the language. Instead, this book will show you how to use the full power of the C++ language in ways that scale well to very large systems.

In short, if you feel that you know C++ well, but would like to understand more about how to use the language effectively on large projects, this book is for you.

Examples in this Text Most people learn by example. In general, I have supplied examples that illustrate real-world designs. I have avoided examples that illustrate one point but have blatant errors in other aspects of the design. I have also tried to avoid examples that illustrate a detail of the language but serve no other useful purpose.

Except where otherwise indicated, all examples in this text are intended to represent "good design." Examples presented in earlier chapters are therefore consistent with all practices recommended throughout the book. A disadvantage of this approach is that you may see code that is written differently from the code you are used to seeing, without yet knowing exactly why. I feel that being able to use all of the examples in the book for reference compensates for this drawback.

There are two notable exceptions to this practice: comments and package prefixes. Comments for many of the examples in this text have simply been omitted for lack of space. Where they are presented, they are at best minimal. Unfortunately, this is one place where the reader is asked to "do as I say, not as I do" -- at least in this book. Let the reader be assured that in practice I am scrupulous about commenting all interfaces as I write them (not after).

The second exception is the inconsistent use of package prefixes in the early examples of the book. In a large project environment package prefixes are required, but they are awkward at first and take some getting used to. I have elected to omit the consistent use of registered package prefixes until after they are formally presented in Chapter 7, so as not to detract from the presentation of other important fundamental material.

Many texts note that inline functions are used in examples for textual brevity when illustrating intended functionality. Since much of this book is directly related to organizational issues such as when to inline, my tendency will be to avoid inline functions in examples. If a function is declared inline, there is a justification for it beyond notational convenience.

Developing large systems in C++ is a constant series of engineering trade-offs. There are almost no absolutes. It is tempting to make statements using words such as never and always. Such statements allow for a simplified presentation of the material. For the level of C++ programmers whom I expect will read this book, such sweeping statements would be challenged - and rightly so. To avoid getting side-tracked in such situations, I will state what is (almost) always true, and then provide a footnote or a pointer to the exceptional case.

There are a variety of popular file name extensions used to distinguish C++ header files and C++ implementation files. For example:

Header File Extensions:

.h .hxx .H .h++ .hh .hpp
Implementation File Extensions: .c .cxx .C .c++ .cc .cpp

Throughout the examples we consistently use the .h extension to identify C++ header files and the .c extension to identify C++ implementation files. In the text, we will frequently refer to header files as .h files and to implementation files as .c files. Finally, all of the examples in this text have been compiled and are syntactically correct using SUN's version of CFRONT 3.0 running on SUN SPARC stations, as well as on HP700 series machines running their native C++ compiler. Of course, any errors are the sole responsibility of the author.

A Road Map There is a lot of material to cover in this book. Not all readers will have the same background. I have therefore provided some basic (but essential) material in Chapter 1 to help level the field. Expert C++ programmers may choose to skim this section or simply refer to it if needed. Chapter 2 contains a modest collection of software design rules that I would hope every experienced developer will quickly ratify.

Chapter 0: Introduction. An overview of what lies in wait for the large-scale C++ software developer.

PART I: BASICS

Chapter 1: Preliminaries. A review of basic language information, common design patterns, and style conventions used in this book.

Chapter 2: Ground Rules. Important design practices that should be followed in any C++ project.

The remainder of the text is divided into two main sections. The first, entitled "Physical Design Concepts," presents a sequence of important topics related to the physical structure of large systems. The material in these chapters (3 through 7) focuses on aspects of programming that will be entirely new to many readers, and cuts right to the bone of large program design. This section is presented "bottom up," with each chapter drawing on information developed in previous chapters.

PART II: PHYSICAL DESIGN CONCEPTS

Chapter 3: Components. The fundamental physical building blocks of a system.

Chapter 4: Physical Hierarchy. The importance of creating a hierarchy of components with acyclic physical dependencies for testing, maintainability, and reuse.

Chapter 5: Levelization. Specific techniques for reducing lin

From the Back Cover

Developing a large-scale software system in C++ requires more than just a sound understanding of the logical design issues covered in most books on C++ programming. To be successful, you will also need a grasp of physical design concepts that, while closely tied to the technical aspects of development, include a dimension with which even expert software developers may have little or no experience.

This is the definitive book for all C++ software professionals involved in large development efforts such as databases, operating systems, compilers, and frameworks. It is the first C++ book that actually demonstrates how to design large systems, and one of the few books on object-oriented design specifically geared to practical aspects of the C++ programming language.

In this book, Lakos explains the process of decomposing large systems into physical (not inheritance) hierarchies of smaller, more manageable components. Such systems with their acyclic physical dependencies are fundamentally easier and more economical to maintain, test, and reuse than tightly interdependent systems. In addition to explaining the motivation for following good physical as well as logical design practices, Lakos provides you with a catalog of specific techniques designed to eliminate cyclic, compile-time, and link-time (physical) dependencies. He then extends these concepts from large to very large systems. The book concludes with a comprehensive top-down approach to the logical design of individual components. Appendices include a valuable design pattern "Protocol Hierarchy" designed to avoid fat interfaces while minimizing physical dependencies; the details of implementing an ANSI C compatible C++ procedural interface; and a complete specification for a suite of UNIX-like tools to extract and analyze physical dependencies. Practical design rules, guidelines, and principles are also collected in an appendix and indexed for quick reference.

0201633620B04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 896 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (July 20, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201633620
• ISBN-13: 978-0201633627
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #493,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read, but Dated and Wordy, July 23, 2002

By 

Anders Johnson (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Large-Scale C++ Software Design (Paperback)

This book is a must-read for any serious C++ programmer. Why? Because it is the only decent treatment of physical C++ design available.

Physical design issues, if not addressed, will inexorably cripple any sufficiently complex, performance-sensitive C++ project. Moreover, there is never any time to worry about physical design quality in the heat of battle, so you really need to deal with it up front.

Having said that, the book is not without its flaws.

First, the age of the text is evident. It doesn't address the interchangeability of typedefs and classes for certain purposes, it doesn't fully appreciate the power of namespaces, and it is rife with "the World didn't go that way" conventions. Fortunately, this doesn't prevent the book from getting its point across, but you do need to take some of its "rules" with a grain of salt.

Second, it's longer than it needs to be. This isn't so much of a liability, because it reads faster as a result. Still, its redundancy and long-windedness is sometimes tedious.

But all in all, if you've bothered to read this review, then you probably ought to own a copy of this book.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable for its unique insistence on gritty realism., March 25, 1999

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[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Large-Scale C++ Software Design (Paperback)

Have you ever noticed that none of your introductions to C++ ever mention things like header files? This book corrects that omission with a vengeance, taking us deep into the nuts and bolts of real software. It describes things no other book is going to mention (e.g. redundant external include guards, or static nonmember functions to replace private members) and things the object-oriented community prefers to be silent about (e.g., encapsulation in files, not in classes).

Lakos's great strength is in pragmatics; this is advice on programming from someone who has been there. If your project is large enough to need source code control, it's large enough to need this book.

Sometimes the book drifts away from its roots, assuming a dragging academic tone. However, this does not change the overall rating -- a book with no substitutes.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Seriously dated, February 17, 2010

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Luca Fascione "An Italian mathematician" (Wellington, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Large-Scale C++ Software Design (Paperback)

I am extremely sad for what I am about to say, but unfortunately this book has lost most if not all of its relevance over the last 15 years. I don't think today is a very useful book to read anymore.

Context:
I read a few books on and around C++ (say the 4 Sutter's, the 2 Alexandrescu's, the 3 Meyers, many parts of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, Kernighan and Pike, Refactoring, Design Patterns, Analysis Patterns) and maybe about a half of this book. A this point I stopped. Note that this is well into the physical design part, which was the reason I bought this book in the first place. I am extremely disappointed with the book, enough that this is probably the first time I don't finish a programming book.

Review:
There are two principal bad points about this book: one is the density is way too low, the book is about 600 pages, the same stuff should have been edited down to maybe 250 (one could say this is the editor's job, btw, but still it's our time which is not made best use of). The other one is that most of what the author talks about are either suggestions for protocols that nobody would use today (take the proposed iterator interface: since the STL became standard, nobody iterates like Lakos suggests anymore) or, worse, based on circumstantial evidence of the system the author was using at that time: a lot of the book is concerned with reducing inclusion dependencies which in the text is mostly supported by a measurement the author made on his system, and then marginally by the necessity of being able to undergo low costs when moving files around a project for reuse (which instead, on its own, is a pretty good point: if there's too many complex inclusion dependencies, relocating a file for refactoring, or pulling it into a different project can become a nightmare).

Unfortunately he took a seriously wrong choice to attack his problem: he chose to manually solve the problem with various tricks and hacks such as external include guards, instead of building himself a simple tool like a pre-preprocessor or something of the kind. Needless to say, for the case in point, modern compilers have no need for such guards, as single inclusion is built into all the (current) tool chains I know *OF* (let alone the ones I use!) (this is necessary for building big systems, because headers could reside on a network, and it would be unwise to pull the same file across multiple times, once you have the file across, you parse it once, and then use it as necessary). So yes, he deserves the credit for identifying a problem (assuming he's been the first to describe it), but most certainly not much credit for the solutions proposed.

While reading, I have spent copious amounts of energy trying to salvage in my mind the most from what the author suggests, but I gave up, under the impression that the update work needed was quite more than the information that could be kept unchanged.

At this point I went back, and reread all the reviews on Amazon and figured that the part I read was actually the "good" one, while the section on logic design was even more out of date, and this is where I stopped reading.

Summing up, the one good point of the book is outlining that headers can be thought of as graphs of dependencies, and that keeping these graphs as acyclic as possible solves so many problems that it's for sure well worth including as one of the primary design goals in a project. A few techniques are shown on how to achieve this goal. Some are of some value, none was particularly non-obvious (any simple technique in Sutter, Meyers or Alexandrescu is quite more sophisticated than what's discussed here).

So, any book that pointed out what I said in the phrase above is worth maybe two stars, this author lost one due to his complete inability to summarize and come directly to a point. One extra star was then added in consideration to the person who so warmly recommended this book, as he is a very experienced programmer.

By the way, I realized after the fact that I have also been (in the past) a user of one of the packages from the company the author was working for, as well as a couple of competitor and more or less equivalent packages. I most definitely cannot say that *from the user experience standpoint* the product was any better than the others, actually it seemed quite disrespectful of standard platform conventions for default file storage, for example.

One last word:
I'm not sure this is relevant to all readers, but the style and typography of this book are surprisingly poor. The text is set too big and is poorly spaced, there are too many visual jumps in spacing and density, many pictures are related to text in a non-visible page (typically the previous one) and most pictures are way too big for the little information they represent. For a book that has received this level of credit (and a publisher of otherwise rather beautiful books) I had expected a *much* better look and feel than this.

Other Resources:
I think a more modern replacement for this book would be Sutter and Alexandrescu's "C++ Coding Standards", which does not have an explicit part on physical design issues, but gives you enough food for thought to build yourself quite naturally good practices in that domain based on the rest of the discussion. One of their opening points is "don't sweat the small stuff". Great advice.