Synopses & Reviews
In OBJECT THINKING, esteemed object technologist David West contends that the mindset makes the programmer—not the tools and techniques. Delving into the history, philosophy, and even politics of object-oriented programming, West reveals how the best programmers rely on analysis and conceptualization—on thinking—rather than formal process and methods. Both provocative and pragmatic, this book gives form to what’s primarily been an oral tradition among the field’s revolutionary thinkers—and it illustrates specific object-behavior practices that you can adopt for true object design and superior results.
Gain an in-depth understanding of:
- Prerequisites and principles of object thinking.
- Object knowledge implicit in eXtreme Programming (XP) and Agile software development.
- Object conceptualization and modeling.
- Metaphors, vocabulary, and design for object development.
Learn viable techniques for:
- Decomposing complex domains in terms of objects.
- Identifying object relationships, interactions, and constraints.
- Relating object behavior to internal structure and implementation design.
- Incorporating object thinking into XP and Agile practice.
About the Author
Dave West would like to describe himself as sheik geek. Unfortunately no one else would describe him in that way. They would say he is a professional Englishman who likes to talk about software development best practices with the passion and energy of an evangelical preacher. Recently Dave has moved to Ivar Jacobson Consulting, where he runs the Americas and can combine his desire to talk about software development and spread the word on rugby and football, and argue that cricket is more exciting that baseball. Before running the Americas for Ivar Jacobson Consulting, Dave worked for a number of years at Rational Software (now a part of IBM). Dave held many positions at Rational and then IBM, including Product Manager for RUP where he introduced the idea of process plug-ins and agility to RUP. Dave still laments the days when he use to sit in a cube and write software in the city of London. This is where he believes he cut his teeth writing big insurance systems with nothing but a green screen and a process flow chart.
Dave can be contacted at
[email protected], and if he is not with customers or drinking warm beer with his friends in Boston, he will email you back.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; Preface; A Different (and Possibly Controversial) Kind of Software Book; Paths and Destinations; Who Should Read This Book; How This Book Is Organized; Introduction; Curiosities; The "People Issue"; Object Thinking; XP and Object Thinking; Chapter 1: Object Thinking; Observing the Object Difference; Object Thinking = Think Like an Object; Problem = Solution; Object Thinking and Agile Development Practices; Thinking Is Key; Onward; Chapter 2: Philosophical Context; Philosophy Made ManifestDueling Languages; Formalism and Hermeneutics; Postmodern Critiques; Chapter 3: From Philosophy to Culture; Four Presuppositions; Object PrinciplesSoftware Principles; Cooperating Cultures; Chapter 4: Metaphor: Bridge to the Unfamiliar; The Lego Brick Metaphor; The Object-as-Person Metaphor; Software as Theater; Programmers as Directors; Ants, Not Autocrats; Two Human-Derived Metaphors; Thinking Like an Object; Chapter 5: Vocabulary: Words to Think With; Essential Terms; Extension Terms; Implementation Terms; Auxiliary Concepts; Chapter 6: Method, Process, and Models; Two Decades of Object Methodology; Purpose and Use of Method; A Syncretic Approach; Models; Chapter 7: Discovery; Domain Understanding; Object Definition; Chapter 8: Thinking Toward Design; Object Internals; Object Appearance; Object State, Object Constraints; Chapter 9: All the Worlds a Stage; Static Relationships; Dynamic Relationships; Constraints; Development at the Speed of Thought; Chapter 10: Wrapping Up; Vexations; Extensions; ProvocationThe Future of Objects; Bibliography; Appendix : About the Author;