Customer Reviews

Principles of Object-Oriented Software Development (2nd Edition)

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This book is a waste of trees. I have tried to unload it after having it forced on me as a textbook. Three times I've listed it here used, and three times it has failed to sell. It is currently listed at the cheapest I could. I would almost pay you to take it from me. Here is the review:

The book seems to be designed to capture the academic OO-class textbook market. In the author's own words, "The material is organized around slides." Presentation slides have been focused and reproduced as summaries and guiding points throughout the text. In most cases they are top-level points, with no description. The effect is like having the author forget to remove elements of his outline from the final text. Distracting, with no value added. Except for the idea that the book comes with all the slides, and an instructor's guide is also available, which makes this an attractive package for the academic. I have no problem with this, if the content was usable. But it's not. OO is a complicated subject. The author never seems to break down OO principles into an easy to understand format. At times, even the simpler stuff regarding OO seems obfuscated. Bear in mind this was for a Master's level software engineering class on OO design. So the students were ready to operate at a high level, and several of them had some OO experience.

There simply are better books on OO development. Try Bertrand Meyer's book if you want a solid, in-depth, comprehensive look at OO design. Another classic is of course the Grady Booch book. Try Larman's Applying UML and Patterns (in a new edition) if you want a hands-on approach with a solid example running throughout, and not too broad a scope to the point where the book is too big, or the coverage inadequate. And if you want exposure to the process of moving from requirements to an object model using CRC, see Designing Object Oriented Systems from Wirfs-Brock (don't let the vintage fool you).

I have no idea why such a distinguished author (Clemens Szyperski) would write a forward for a book like this.

Like most people interested in computer science and programming, I've wasted a lot of money buying books which merely paraphrase the seminal writers amidst much padding. From my experience, there are 3 contemporary "black holes" which have a voracious appetite for the wallets of apprentice, hobby and professional computer programmers/scientists : these black holes are named "Java" , "Object Oriented" and "C ++". This review is on object-oriented. There are 2 seminal books in this field - "Object Oriented Analysis and Design" by Booch, and now this new book can claim to instruct at the same level. Unlike many books which look at "OO" with reference to a particular language, this one is language independent. It treats C ++ , Java , Smalltalk , Eiffel , UML and CORBA at the same level, giving the features of each which are applicable for OO modelling. It is also a nice overview of the OO languages, if you are not familiar with them (like me before I read this book!). This book is targeted at those who can already program well (if you are new to programming it might be overwhelming, but nevertheless will put ideas into your subconscious brain which will repay dividends in other areas) , and want to know how using the concept of OO can enhance your software development technique. If you consider yourself to be an expert OO programmer in any of the languages above, you can still gain a lot of depth in your understanding of programming as a craft by reading this book. If you have no understanding, maybe disdain for the topic of OO (eg hard core Assembly programmers maybe ) you can still learn a lot about programming as an intellectual activity from this deep and thought-provoking book. Once you have read both these books by Booch and Eliens, you will perhaps come to realise just how much money you have wasted on the other books which claim to teach what object oriented programming really means. The other major benefit of reading this book before you read any books on C++ is how natural and less cryptic C ++ concepts seem. This is not surprising - Straustrup invented C ++ to model object modelling concepts found in the language Simula. Another thing which struck me reading this book is that it is worthy enough to attach at the end of Donald Knuth's monumental treatise as an introduction to modern object-oriented programming. It has the same "deep" feel about it, that you can read over and over again , each time getting a different perception (like Booch). The only hesitation you might have is the price, which is not cheap, however the words of the masters are well worth paying for in terms of how much you can save on later books, given the gain in depth of understanding.