Customer Reviews

Object-Oriented Design & Patterns

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

 

 

I came away from this book wondering just who was meant to read it. It starts with "A Crash Course in Java." (Somehow, I never learned to like any "crash" in the context of program design.) This is much too brief to teach the language, or even summarize it well. Any of many other books would be better for teaching Java to C++ programmers.

Next, the book goes through two chapters of object oriented design. These chapters are over in about 100 pages - again, not nearly enough time to address OO design in with any real insight. The OO paradigm is truly different from previous generations of software design, and can not be summed up in a few pages of rote rules.

Worse, the author identifies "javadoc" as a design documentation tool! It is not. Javadoc does a very good job of documenting implementation, but it documents design very badly. If you're not a programmer, trust me - implementation and design are as different as carpentry and architecture. Neither is better than the other, and both are needed to build a house. Implementation is not design, though, and the two require very different documentation.

The rest of of the book continues in an odd pastiche including:
-- ideas the programmer already needed to understand the earlier material,
-- afterthoughts on the Java language, scattered among other topics,
-- a weak discussion of design patterns, and
-- a severely flawed discussion of multithreading.

Only this last deserves attention. Multithreading is a subtle topic. It's easy to write multithreaded code, but very hard to write it correctly. The author actually does a good job of discussing interruption in threads. However, the book's description of synchronization and deadlock is so brief that it leaves me worried - student programmers might read that material and come away thinking they understood the topics. Insufficient knowledge may be worse than none at all, in this case. Most distressing, the author makes no apparent mention of "volatile" data in Java. Multithreaded applications don't need to use volatile data. The programmer MUST understand when volatility is a problem, though, and avoid it or address it directly. It is unacceptable to ignore the risks addressed by "volatile" declarations.

I can not recommend this book. It claims to address object oriented design, Java, and design patterns. I feel that it does an inadequate job on all counts.

Reviewer: Dr. Alexander Yakhnis, ayakhnis@brockport.edu

I like the book and have taught Spring 2004 Object-oriented Development (CSC 429 ) course at SUNY College at Brockport, New York. I have taught the material from Chapter I through 6. I have also used the material from Ch. 8 Object-Oriented Frameworks for 2 Independent Study Courses with 2 students during Summer 2004.

I find chapters 4 and 5 the best hands on introduction to Design Patterns that makes the corresponding material of The Gang of Four book quite understandable and it is better by far than many other attempts to introduce design patterns. The author plays to an advantage the use of Java and its libraries already based on some of the design patterns that many other authors have not exploited despite existence of Design Patterns presented in Java.

I also find the choice of 5 patterns: Iterator, Strategy, Observer, Composite and Decorator very tasteful as well as very useful. The author's problem examples illustrating the use of design patterns, particularly, the Invoice example is excellent.

The material in Ch. 4 on Interface Types leads to design patterns gracefully, and one can obviously recognize Strategy patter playing important role unnamed yet. This looks to me a good arrangement. Exercises reinforce the ideas very well. If some more exercises will be added that would be a nice improvement.

The author succeeds in making clear the concept of Object-Oriented Frameworks in introductory textbook. Separation of a framework and applications built on it is very well presented. Use of sequence diagrams helps to understand OO Framework. I would suggest that the concept of a Use Case and collaboration diagrams as alternative to sequence diagrams helps to get into the heart of how a framework achieves a goal relevant to a user. An excellent example of such a goal is presented in Ch. 8 for the Graph Framework.

When I was teaching the course I have attempted to replace The Object-Oriented Design Process from Ch. 2 by elements of Craig Larman textbook Applying UML and Patterns (Completely different patterns there than the 5 mentioned above). It helped me to reinforce software engineering concepts taught by Craig Larman that I have taught in software engineering course and also provided good point of view for understanding the OO Frameworks where some of the goals served by an OO Framework are viewed as Use Cases.

I would use the book again for CSC 429 Object-Oriented Development without hesitation should I be teaching this course again. Also, I continue to use OO Design and Patterns as a source of material for Independent Studies.

Finally, I congratulate the author for making available and understandable the concept of Design Patterns as practical way of building OO software at undergraduate level.

The previous reviewer sounds like he is looking for an all in one reference. Indeed, if you are a professional programmer and need a reference book, this one is not for you. However, if you're a student, new to OO programming/design or just want to add to your programming knowledge, this is a perfect book. It's designed for the classroom first (see the preface and exercises!), but is also useful for anyone who learned to program in C++ or Java and wants more sophisticated OO coverage. It is certainly not intended to teach the entire language. Rather, it assumes you already know how to program and want to learn more about Object-Oriented Design, including UML and design patterns. This is an important topic and it's never been introduced in a clearer, more intersting way than it is in this book.

This is my textbook from the OOD course I am currently taking with Dr. Horstmann. The course along with the text has completely transform the way I think about programming in general. The book teaches OOD Design process in the first few chapters and goes into more in-depth focusing on Design Patterns and using the JAVA API to illustrate them. I also have the classic "Gang of 4" Design Pattern text, which I had tried to read with no avail before. For a novice programmer, without enouogh programming experience, one does not appreciate the utilities of the Design Patterns. In Horstmann's text, he poses interesting programming tasks, and solves them by using design patterns. This provides a context that a novice programmer can appreciate and learn from. He also references other texts, and tools to help you get more information. The book is not meant to be an in-depth study of any particular topics, but rather, it interwovens many important concepts of medium level difficulty and present a rich and entertaining view on the subject. This is excellent text for a second or third course on programming.

OK, in spite of the fact that I develop in C# versus Java and the price is steep, I still think this is a great purchase. Horstmann provides an insightful introduction into serious software development. The book provides a lot of detail that is aimed at increasing your understanding of the language (or related languages) versus simply conveying languge semantics. His introduction to patterns is fairly light (I'd recommend Metsker's "Design Patterns in C#") but solid enough. Although in many respects the material was "refresher" stuff, the prose was entertaining and I found myself picking the book up time and time again just to read a few pages.

Be careful when you purchase/rent this 'digital edition' book! There is *no* option to send this title to your actual Kindle Reader/Kindle Fire! Why advertise that there is a 'Kindle Edition' when it will only work in, for example, the version that runs on your computer? Why can't I send this to my Kindle Fire?

With respect of OOD, for the size of this textbook, they tried to mention every topic about OOD but in a very high-level manner that sometimes, I left with more questions about OOD than before. I think you will enjoy this book if you already know about OOD and you just need a small book that mention the major OOD topics. With respect of design patterns, Again if you already know design patterns, this book will help you to remember the idea of major design patterns.

I had to get this for one of my courses. It is made well, and was a pretty good read. Certainly not one of the worst books I've ever had to buy.

If you want to learn programming, go to a good teacher that has real experience of working on real projects. He will most likely use this book. There is no other book that will convert you into a real OO "thinker" in just one course. Perefection, and all nitty gritty details can come later when you start working for industry or just "google", for any syntax, or design. Google will not teach you how to think OO. That teacher with this book can!

I consider myself knowledgeable in Java, and I found this book very subpar (it was required for one of my classes). It skims over many important topics, fails at properly explaining polymorphism or inheritance, and not to mention the laughable "explanation" of design patterns. Personally, I understand all those concepts (and I did get my A in that class), but I do feel the pain of someone trying to understand those concepts just by reading this book.

I use the word "another" in this review's title, because many years ago I had the misfortune of reading another failure of a book by Cay: Java Concepts. Both books do a horrible job a explaining object oriented programming.

If you want to actually learn design patterns, go with Head First Design Patterns. If you want to learn Java go with Head First Java. Another good Java book is Java How to Program (Deitel & Deitel). Those books will explain these concepts clearly and in detail, while providing you with plenty of examples.

Avoid this one like the plague.