Re: Basic books on OOA&D

From: Jacob Atzen (jacob_at_aub.dk)
Date: 10/18/03 

Date: 18 Oct 2003 22:09:55 +0200

"H. S. Lahman" <h.lahman@verizon.net> writes:

> I would suggest browsing at a book store rather than on Amazon.

Not an option. Unfortunately Denmark doesn't really have any
bookstores with much choice on such a specialized topic.

> What you need is a good OOA/D book. However, 'good' will subjective.
> There are lots of OOA/D methodologies around and each has its own
> perspective on the same underlying fundamentals. What you need is a
> book that seems to make sense to /you/. IOW, you need an OOA/D book
> that provides the best clarity from your perspective.

I've ordered R. Wirfs-Brocks "Object Design: Roles, Responsibilites,
and Collaborations" as an introduction to Object Oriented
Design. My hope is that it will give me a better understanding of what
constitutes good and bad OO design.

I've also ordered R. Martins "Agile Software Development". This (I
believe) is more of a methodology book on software development in
general than a book on sound OO principles.

I hope these two in combination will give me a reasonable foundation
for my first projects and further study. Whether they make sense to
*me* is hard to tell up front.

> SO I usually only recommend some screening techniques for browsing.
>
> (1) It must be an OOA/D book, 'OO' with 'Analysis' and/or 'design'
> should be in the title somewhere.
>
> (2) Ignore books with 'UML' or a specific OOPL in the title. The vast
> majority of these are about manipulating the notation syntax. They
> are very good at explaining how to express what you want to do but
> they tend to be short on ideas for what you should be wanting to do.
> Today one needs UML to talk about OOA/D, but it should be just a
> notation vehicle.

Very good point. I have the same experience from the books on C++ and
Java I've read/browsed. At the moment I'm reading "UML and the Unified
Process". It seems to be too focused on UML/UP and promoting
technologies surrounding it. Even though it's subtitle is "Practical
Object-Oriented Analysis & Design" I have you to find anything
describing good OOA&D in it. But I guess it's a good counter-weight to
the Agile and XP methods which I plan to study also.

> (3) Certain keywords in the index are mandatory: abstraction,
> behavior, class, cohesion, encapsulation, implementation hiding,
> inheritance, message, method, object, polymorphism, property,
> relationship, responsibility.
>
> (4) Be wary of any book where there are more index entries for 'type'
> than for 'class'. OOA/D is implemented with type systems in the
> OOPLs, so this is usually a good indication of bias towards OOP.
>
> (5) Browse the entries for the items in (3). In particular look to
> see if the explanations are good enough so that you understand the
> differences between: message and method; between subclassing,
> inheritance, and polymorphism; behavior and knowledge; and cohesion,
> encapsulation, and implementation hiding.
>
> If the author's exposition makes a lot of sense to you for (5), then
> buy it. If the book explains WHY those distinctions are important to
> the way one builds OO software, let me know and I'll buy it.

I will pay attention to those concepts and let you know if I find the
*why* is explained well :-) 

-- 
Thank you,
- Jacob Atzen

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