Written by a world-renowned expert on programming methodology, this book shows how to build production-quality programs--programs that are reliable, easy to maintain, and quick to modify. Its emphasis is on modular program construction: how to get the modules right and how to organize a program as a collection of modules. The book presents a methodology effective for either an individual programmer, who may be writing a small program or a single module in a larger one; or a software engineer, who may be part of a team developing a complex program comprised of many modules. Both audiences will acquire a solid foundation for object-oriented program design and component-based software development from this methodology.

Because each module in a program corresponds to an abstraction, such as a collection of documents or a routine to search the collection for documents of interest, the book first explains the kinds of abstractions most useful to programmers: procedures; iteration abstractions; and, most critically, data abstractions. Indeed, the author treats data abstraction as the central paradigm in object-oriented program design and implementation. The author also shows, with numerous examples, how to develop informal specifications that define these abstractions--specifications that describe what the modules do--and then discusses how to implement the modules so that they do what they are supposed to do with acceptable performance.

Other topics discussed include:

• Encapsulation and the need for an implementation to provide the behavior defined by the specification
• Tradeoffs between simplicity and performance
• Techniques to help readers of code understand and reason about it, focusing on such properties as rep invariants and abstraction functions
• Type hierarchy and its use in defining families of related data abstractions
• Debugging, testing, and requirements analysis
• Program design as a top-down, iterative process, and design patterns

The Java programming language is used for the book's examples. However, the techniques presented are language independent, and an introduction to key Java concepts is included for programmers who may not be familiar with the language.

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Liskov (engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Guttag (computer science and engineering, also at MIT) present a component- based methodology for software program development. The book focuses on modular program construction: how to get the modules right and how to organize a program as a collection of modules. It explains the key types of abstractions, demonstrates how to develop specifications that define these abstractions, and illustrates how to implement them using numerous examples. An introduction to key Java concepts is included.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Of all the books that have sought to explain object-oriented, component-based development, this one is unique in its clarity. MIT Professor Barbara Liskov presents a start-to-finish methodology for constructing reliable, understandable, easy-to-maintain Java software.<P>Developers will learn exactly how to decompose a programming problem into its key elements, and then build an optimal program from independent modules — crucial for success in large-scale, team development projects. Liskov masterfully introduces key concepts of abstraction, specification, and object-oriented design in the context of small programs; then scales the techniques up to enterprise-class development, where they work equally well. The book includes detailed coverage of developing and writing accurate specifications; optimizing tradeoffs between simplicity and performance; and making code easier to evaluate, debug, and test. In the second half of the book, Liskov focuses on modular development of large-scale programs: discovering useful abstractions, program design, analysis, implementation, testing, and the value of design patterns. All examples are based on Java (though the concepts are equally applicable to any object-based language).

Barbara Liskov is professor of computer science at MIT. Well known for her contributions to programming methodology and software engineering, she is co-author (with John Guttag) of the influential book, Abstraction and Specification in Program Development.

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1. Introduction.

2. Understanding Objects in Java.

3. Procedural Abstraction.

4. Exceptions.

5. Data Abstraction.

6. Iteration Abstraction.

7. Type Hierarchy.

8. Polymorphic Abstractions.

9. Specifications.

10. Testing and Debugging.

11. Requirements Analysis.

12. Requirements Specifications.

13. Design.

14. Between Design and Implementation.

15. Design Patterns.

Glossary.

Index. 0201657686T04062001