Customer Reviews

MWSS: Object-Oriented Design in Java (Mitchell Waite Signature)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a witty, well-organized, thorougly researched and informative work. Not only do the authors do an excellent job of presenting the concepts of software design using solid OO techniques, their introduction to Java (in a chapter only somewhat facetiously titled "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Minutes") is almost certainly the most concise and understandable introduction to the language that I've seen.

Every chapter is focused and the flow of material is really excellent. I found myself, as someone who has had years of OO design and development experience, nodding my head repeatedly. And the end of each chapter contains a quiz, some suggested exercises, and a section on where to go for more depth on the subjects covered. As a result, this book would be outstanding for a college-level course or an informal workshop of Java developers who want to learn serious OO design and analysis.

If you aren't a beginner at OOD you might find this a little light reading. For me it's been a perfect and thorough introduction to the vast topic. My programming history has been mostly procedural (Foxpro, C) and an ugly mix of pseudo objects and procedural (Visual Foxpro, C++).

It's one thing to learn the Java syntax and there are several books that can help you get up to speed with that, from Horton to Horstmann, etc. It's quite another to learn how to put it all together in a rational efficient way and actually build an application according to OO principles. In the first four chapters this book has already had me scrambling to redesign my current project accordingly. At first that seemed intimidating, but the immediate payoff has been code that makes a lot more "sense", even to me, the original programmer.

One thing is annoying, and that is the obligatory chapter on Java syntax, basic data types, control structures, etc. Why bother? There is no point in reading this book until you've at least finished, say, Ivor Horton's Beginning Java. They could have left it out.

Also, the version of Java they talk about is 1.1 so it's a little out of date. However, I haven't come across anything specific yet that is impacted by this.

Overall, 4 stars.

Although I haven't read this entire book, it's obvious to me that these guys know how to write programming books. Some of the more difficult to understand oop and java concepts are explained very well, and, unlike other java books, I don't find myself peeling through layers and layers of abstract drivel to understand the key ideas. Whew! What a relief! Now I have a REAL book to refer to when I need to reinforce an important idea. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to really understand how to brew good, clean, effective java.

I'm just a guy who has been professionally programming in Lotus Notes for several years and wanted to make the switch to java and incorporate it Notes projects and stand-alone Java apps. I'm learning it on my own - I recommend finding a mentor because I KNOW that learning would be SO much faster that way - and went through several books and classes without really understanding some java basics.

After all the books I have tried to read I finally found one that is right up my alley! It's called OBJECT ORIENTED DESIGN IN JAVA by Mitchell Waite and Robert LaFore. It's several years old and some of the syntax might be deprecated but it does an EXCELLENT job of explaining the ways , and more importantly, the WHY's of designing a program a certain way. By doing so, they explaing the ins and outs of Java!

Having last programmed in Pascal and C while still at university several years ago, this book was an excellent introduction into the object-oriented programming (OOP) methodology and the Java language, while also teaching essential HTML skills on the fly.

The book is clearly written and makes extensive use of easy-to-understand examples, which are presented in a humorous, story-like way that makes the reader curious to read on.

I can warmly recommend this book to novice programmers, as well as to those, whose programming skills were acquired in the era prior to OOP!

Gilbert and McCarty's book is a great coverage of object oriented design which could be extended to any object oriented language. I especially liked their use of real-life senarios to demonstrate the techniques they describe. Be warned, though. Many of their Java examples, even on the CD, contain bugs. I kind of enjoyed debugging the classes, but this may be fustrating to a beginning Java programmer. If you are a beginning Java programmer, you may want to choose a different text, but definately buy Object-Oriented Design in Java as your second book, especially if you enjoy squishing bugs!

If you have no idea of what the OOD is all about, this book is a good resource to start. I read first 4 chapters in 2 hrs. and I'm sure so will you. It'll introduce you to all the terminologies but if you're looking for indepth study and more advanced programming and designing techniques, try smething else.

I've been involved with OO Design for over 10 years, and thought I knew it all. This book is more than an excellent introduction to methodology for novice programmers - it's also an excellent reference for how to apply patterns in the real world using Java. This book packs an amazing amount of clear and concise material into a surprisingly cheap package. I'm sorry to say, I paid full price for it - and it was still a bargain. Everything from UML to Beans to RMI to Web development. Great book.

Java, It's ALL about objects! And this book will teach you objects! The basic syntax to Java is easy to learn, but Objects and Object design is the key to java! This book explains object design, ploymorphism, encapsulation and inhertiance perfectly!
After this book THEN you can go back to the other books like Deitel "How To Program in Java".
Once you master Objects...Java is CAKE! In my college course the definition of an object is "an instance of a class" Wow..that tells me alot.
The most difficult part of Java is learning Objects.
Read this book...learn objects...then the rest of java is easy!
Very very very very good book on objects!

Although their laid-back style may not be for everyone, I have learned a lot about the basics of object oriented design and enjoyed the process. I plan to use the recommended techniques as a starting point for my own project.