Pattern Hatching: Design Patterns Applied [Paperback]

John Vlissides (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201432935 | ISBN-13: 978-0201432930 | Publication Date: July 2, 1998 | Edition: 1

Software developers now recognize the value of design patterns in helping build better software more efficiently. As a result, design patterns have become extremely popular in the software development community. Pattern Hatching explains and enhances the information from the seminal work in the field, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. The hands-on approach offered by John Vlissides, co-author of Design Patterns, enables you to better understand the pattern development process, and therefore identify and write your own patterns. The author's insights will further allow you to apply the original 23 patterns by example.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Author John Vlissides is a member of the so-called Gang of Four: writers of the bestselling and influential Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, a catalog of 23 design patterns. This more recent book delivers considerable insight on using and applying software design patterns--reusable designs for common programming problems--and compiles the author's further experience with patterns.

Pattern Hatching first defends the patterns movement by offering 10 myths about patterns, which provide a framework for thinking about the role of patterns in today's software. (While not a silver bullet, the author argues for the continued importance of patterns throughout software engineering.) The next section shows how to apply several patterns (drawn from the original 23) in a file system; the author uses and describes common patterns such as the Composite, Visitor, Proxy, and Singleton. To help illustrate how to use patterns and how they work together, the author also provides C++ source code for the designs in the book.

Part of the fun of reading Pattern Hatching is getting the author's insight on the origin of thinking about patterns, including several patterns that were actually left out of the original book, such as the Generation Gap pattern and the Multicast pattern.

For readers who are familiar with Design Patterns, Pattern Hatching is a lively behind-the-scenes look at one of the most important recent developments in software design. --Richard Dragan

Review

"This book will help you understand how the GoF book-and, indeed, any collection of design patterns-can be a treasured guide without being a burdensome prescription." -- James O. Coplien, Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs Innovations

Wow! I've never read a technical book written in such an appealing style. John really has surmounted a challenge here: being concrete, correct, and engaging on a technical subject. -- Frank Buschmann, Siemens AG

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (July 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201432935
• ISBN-13: 978-0201432930
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential companion to the GoF book, February 7, 2000

By 

Satadru Roy (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pattern Hatching: Design Patterns Applied (Paperback)

A succint and lucid explanation of how patterns can be actually applied. Chapter 2 is a must read where John develops a file system application - he dwells in great detail about which patterns suit best the needs of the application and which do not. He starts with the Composite pattern, then refines the model gradually with Proxy, Visitor, Template method, Abstract Factory, Singleton and Mediator patterns. The 3rd chapter introduces a new pattern called 'Generation Gap' while the 4th chapter is an extremely entertaining read containg numerous excerpts of correspondences between GoF authors where they debate whether the MultiCast pattern is just a refinement of Observer or a pattern in its own right.

IMHO - read the basic patterns in the GoF book first, read chapter 2 of Pattern Hatching, go back and read the GoF book again. Do this a number of times and you'll probably have a much better insight than by just reading the GoF book.

A word of warning for Java developers - it would help to have a decent knowledge of C++ (templates included ;-) ) to understand the code samples.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Book, October 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Pattern Hatching: Design Patterns Applied (Paperback)

This slender volume should be required reading for anyone working on an object oriented system (and if you're using C++, you ought to read it three or four times). This book won't so much tell you how to solve particular problems as much as it will help to develop a way of thinking about programming problems that leads to well-design solutions.

The GoF book's second chapter example is unfortunate: virtually every programmer I've recommended Design Patterns to has expressed frustration over the inaccessibility of the primary example of applying patterns in a system.

The file system example in Vlissides, on the other hand, is a lucid and enaging narrative that everyone relates to and seems to gain immediate insight from. I now recommend this book as a requirement for really understanding the GoF book. It's worth the price many times over.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile read, September 1, 1998

By 

Jeff Benson (Aurora, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pattern Hatching: Design Patterns Applied (Paperback)

Fans of the original Design Patterns book will be pleased to find that the Gang of Four (GoF) has included a brand new pattern--Generation Gap--and a rough draft of one more, called Typed Message. This new pattern, dealing with code generators and the problems that arise when you modify generated code and then need to regenerate it, may be worth the purchase price of the book alone.

This book is definitely less structured than Design Patterns--almost rambling at points as it jumps from topic to topic. Nevertheless, it is enlightening to read samples of actual communiqués between GoF members as design patterns are fleshed out. This is an insightful view of the process of writing patterns. (Indeed, chapter 5 is dedicated to how to write patterns well.)

My one complaint is that the book is divided into only five chapters, several of which are overly long. The book would benefit from a little more structure. However, it is undeniably valuable and is a must-read for those interested in the patterns community. The author dedicates an entire chapter to a sample project (designing the file system for an operating system) that incorporates four or five patterns. If you found Design Patterns to be too theoretical, and have trouble seeing how to apply patterns to real-world projects, this chapter will probably help.

Warning: Most of the contents of this book, as with Design Patterns, are applicable across languages. However, Chapter 3, the thickest chapter in the book, and the least useful to me as a VB5/Delphi developer, deals almost exclusively with implementation problems and "workarounds" when implementing patterns in C++. If you work mainly with some of the other viable platforms out there, you may want to skim through this section.

Overall, this book was a worthwhile read and didn't actually take that long (it's only 156 pages). If you're a software designer and you're interested in patterns, you should read this book.