Implementation Patterns (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

“Kent is a master at creating code that communicates well, is easy to understand, and is a pleasure to read. Every chapter of this book contains excellent explanations and insights into the smaller but important decisions we continuously have to make when creating quality code and classes.”

–Erich Gamma, IBM Distinguished Engineer

 

“Many teams have a master developer who makes a rapid stream of good decisions all day long. Their code is easy to understand, quick to modify, and feels safe and comfortable to work with. If you ask how they thought to write something the way they did, they always have a good reason. This book will help you become the master developer on your team. The breadth and depth of topics will engage veteran programmers, who will pick up new tricks and improve on old habits, while the clarity makes it accessible to even novice developers.”

–Russ Rufer, Silicon Valley Patterns Group

 

“Many people don’t realize how readable code can be and how valuable that readability is. Kent has taught me so much, I’m glad this book gives everyone the chance to learn from him.”

–Martin Fowler, chief scientist, ThoughtWorks

 

“Code should be worth reading, not just by the compiler, but by humans. Kent Beck distilled his experience into a cohesive collection of implementation patterns. These nuggets of advice will make your code truly worth reading.”

–Gregor Hohpe, author of Enterprise Integration Patterns

 

“In this book Kent Beck shows how writing clear and readable code follows from the application of simple principles. Implementation Patterns will help developers write intention revealing code that is both easy to understand and flexible towards future extensions. A must read for developers who are serious about their code.”

–Sven Gorts

 

“Implementation Patterns bridges the gap between design and coding. Beck introduces a new way of thinking about programming by basing his discussion on values and principles.”

–Diomidis Spinellis, author of Code Reading and Code Quality

 

Software Expert Kent Beck Presents a Catalog of Patterns Infinitely Useful for Everyday Programming

 

Great code doesn’t just function: it clearly and consistently communicates your intentions, allowing other programmers to understand your code, rely on it, and modify it with confidence. But great code doesn’t just happen. It is the outcome of hundreds of small but critical decisions programmers make every single day. Now, legendary software innovator Kent Beck–known worldwide for creating Extreme Programming and pioneering software patterns and test-driven development–focuses on these critical decisions, unearthing powerful “implementation patterns” for writing programs that are simpler, clearer, better organized, and more cost effective.

 

Beck collects 77 patterns for handling everyday programming tasks and writing more readable code. This new collection of patterns addresses many aspects of development, including class, state, behavior, method, collections, frameworks, and more. He uses diagrams, stories, examples, and essays to engage the reader as he illuminates the patterns. You’ll find proven solutions for handling everything from naming variables to checking exceptions.

 

This book covers

• The value of communicating through code and the philosophy behind patterns
• How and when to create classes, and how classes encode logic
• Best practices for storing and retrieving state
• Behavior: patterns for representing logic, including alternative paths
• Writing, naming, and decomposing methods
• Choosing and using collections
• Implementation pattern variations for use in building frameworks

Implementation Patterns will help programmers at all experience levels, especially those who have benefited from software patterns or agile methods. It will also be an indispensable resource for development teams seeking to work together more efficiently and build more maintainable software. No other programming book will touch your day-to-day work more often.

About the Author

Kent Beck, one of the software industry’s most creative and acclaimed leaders, consistently challenges software engineering dogma and promotes ideas like patterns, test-driven development, and Extreme Programming. Currently affiliated with Three Rivers Institute and Agitar Software, he is the author of many Addison-Wesley titles, including Test-Driven Development (2003) and, with Cynthia Andres, Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition (2005).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (November 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321413091
• ISBN-13: 978-0321413093
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,579 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Signature Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wrong title, outrageous price, February 18, 2008

By	Riccardo Audano (Chiavari, Italy) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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The right title should be something like... "Kent Beck on writing readable code". The word "pattern" is way out of context, and will induce you to expect to find something way more precise, detailed and technical than then general advice that this book has to offer. This text could be considered like a chance to have a chat with Kent Beck discussing his ideas on the importance of writing readable code, and on general guidelines for code clarity and expressiveness. I have seen a review complaining about using Java for the examples, but the truth is, you will see very little code in this book. I am also not very sure of the idea target reader for this work. An experienced programmer has already figured out this general advice by himself, but the level of abstraction and detail is too terse to be useful to a beginner. I believe that more material, more detail and a more tutorial-like style could have made this book a worthwhile read for a junior developer. As it is , I have to say it, but I have to rate it as a pretty useless book. I am a big fan of Kent Beck, I admire his programming style, his 'very good habits' and all his did with the XP movement. Together with Martin Fowler, and Allen Holub he's one of those guys who can really have a deep influence on the way you program and think about Object Oriented programming, but this time he' really been a bit self condescending. And the price.. come on..40 bucks for this? You should be ashamed...

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, Not Great, November 25, 2007

By	R. Williams "code slubber" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First off, this is a very thin tome. Which would make you expect a brisk pace, but instead, it's strangely just laconic. A lot of it is so elementary, it is kind of maddening. At one point, Kent tells us that if we need to fetch the time for a number of local variables, we ought use a local variable to 'freeze time.' The biggest problem here, however, is that when the book does turn to a topic that is worthy of some attention, the same paucity produces a feeling of futility: some of idioms, like collecting parameter, for instance, come up. No discussion of how it is a gateway to Visitor, nothing really interesting in fact, just a short little paragraph. Another section on parallel hierarchies ends with the author saying that he figured out how to solve his rather stilted example by introducing a CashFlow object. But he goes on without explaining it. Now, consider the fact that I believe books should ONLY take up topics like that one. This book is greatly confused about who it is for. The reality is this is probably best suited as a tome for people who have been doing basic programming but have not become really mature programmers. The problem is that it only does this in a way that I don't think will help those who have not crossed the bridge to do so. Ironically, I think the main use for this book will be to make people who are doing a lot of these things feel better about it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not much material, January 10, 2008

By	Jonathan Aquino (Victoria, BC Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Pros: Gave me a tiny bit more insight into how a programmer I admire (Beck) thinks. Also the hand-drawn diagrams were intuitivie and easy to grasp.

Cons: Not much material. Book could have been half of its already short length. You sort of got the sense Beck was running out of things to say - the chapter on Collections has graphs of the running times of various collections, and an Appendix is devoted to the code used to create the graphs.