Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices

The bulk of this book describes OO design principles. They're presented in a readable, useful, and well-organized way. Often they just clarify and put a name to something you've probably been doing anyway. The standard Dependency Inversion Principle is there, for one. (I'm glad to see that other people have trouble with the name. By today's reckoning, there's nothing inverted about it, but the name dates back to less enlightened times.) Others, like the Interface Segregation Principle, are less well known but reinforce lots of other good practices, such as data hiding and prevention of "interface leakage".The "Agile" section is blessedly short, and doesn't much contaminate the otherwise good presentation elsewhere in the book. There's a lot of good to be extracted from the agility movement, but there's a lot of rabid dogmatism too. Martin managed to keep it well under control. He presented the Manifesto (ugh) early on, but that was the worst of it.A few points marred the book, but only slightly, The drawings came across as "cute" - unprofessional and tangential to the topics at hand. Semi-fictional conversations in books like this always seem fatuous to me, and Ch.6 was no exception. The technical content managed to withstand this presentation anyway.This book has lots of good ideas. It relates those ideas well to common and useful design patterns. A few aspects of the book tried to be funny, but came across as more annoying than anything else. That was only a few, though - the meaningful content of the book came through despite those flaws. I recommend this book to any serious student or practitioner of OO design and implementation. I really mean "any," since even project-scarred veterans are likely to see some of their hard won knowledge set into clear text and into the context of other ideas.

I don't think I've given another design/programming book 5 stars before. This book deserves it-- it could easily replace a half dozen books on my shelf, and it probably will. Martin focuses on the why's and the wherefores of current OOD methodologies. He doesn't try to sell Agile Processes in this book. Instead, he explains a number of current practices that might be loosely grouped under the 'Agile' name. He anchors his discussion in a set of principles that drive the design process. Then he shows how software patterns can be used to put these principles into practice.Patterns are explained and demonstrated in the context of three case studies. The case studies (a payroll system, a weather monitoring system, and an exam testing system) have the feel of day-to-day problems. One of my chief complaints with other books has been the use of esoteric case studies-- unless I work for Microsoft, I'm not likely to write a word processor anytime soon. Okay, so maybe I won't write a weather station either, but it comes a lot closer to what I will do!The patterns discussion in this book is down-to-earth and easily understood. I have struggled over the 'Gang of Four' book ('Gamma et Al, 'Design Patterns') for well over a year. Bob Martin's book has cut through a lot of the clutter and confusion. It has been a great help to me in understanding why, where, and when to use different patters. And the explanation of UML in the book's appendices is one of the best I have seen. I can't think of a better way to learn UML than to sit down with these Appendices and Martin Fowler's 'UML Distilled'.This is one of the two books I would recommend to an OOD newbie. The other would be 'Object Design' by Rebecca Wirfs Brock and Alan McKean. These books provide a solid grounding in object-oriented design, while requiring a very reasonable expenditure of time and effort.

This book is packed with software engineering practices. I expect to read it over and over again. I've been reading Robert's stuff ever since his book on C++/Booch. He has willingly shared his thoughts on [his website] and now a lot of it is gathered together in this book. Principles. These principles are the foundation upon each pattern should rest, the reference frame for good software engineering.Patterns. This is not just another GoF section. The patterns are discussed, in context, and related in a way that nicely complements GoF. Patterns not found in GoF are also presented.Practices. I've been practicing light weight methods long before the boost of Agile methods happened (Fowler, Martin). The test first design is a very exiting approach to design, leaving you with something much more valuable than mere diagrams - unit tests.The reason I like reading Robert's work is that one can tell he's a programmer (he's got code up to his elbows). I'm sure there is software engineers matching him out there but only a few that match his teaching skills and experience. Have you ever felt discouraged by books full of (UML) diagrams pretending that's all there is to software development? You won't feel that way reading this book. This is the revival of source code (complemented with conceptual diagrams), so be prepared to read some too. Isn't it great?

Agile Software Development is a great Object-Oriented Design book that presents it's subject in the context of Agile Development. The book delivers solid design and programming advice in a very "light" style. Not light in that it avoids technical detail! No, Bob seems to have taken the principles of agile development and applied them to the art of technical book writing.The book is divided into six sections and has four appendices. There are numerous UML diagrams and many code examples in C++ and Java. If you don't know UML two of the appendices will introduce you to it. The book takes a top down approach to presenting the material. You are first given a quick overview of agile development practices. I particularly liked the Testing and A Programming Episode chapters from this section. The second section presents five high-level design priciples that every developer should learn and apply.Case studies dealing with a payroll system, weather station software, and testing software are then presented. Each case study section starts by discussing the design patterns that will be seen in the case study. Section Four discusses subdividing the payroll system into packages. Six principles and a set of package Dependency Management metrics (I've known them as the "Martin Metrics" for years) are covered. The book wraps up with the two UML appendices mentioned above, a comparison of two imaginary developments, and an interesting article by Jack Reeves.In my opinion Agile Software Development Principles, Patterns, and Practices is the best OOD book out there.

I knew the book would be a great one before read it. But now, after I read some of its chapters, I know I underestimated it. I love to read Uncle Bob's books and articles. His previous book "Designing Object-Oriented C++ Application with Booch Method" is a real gem, I learn much a lot from it, maybe more than any other books on designing. The author's style is unique, he tries to guide readers to reach a good design instead of just putting the final solution in front of you. He presents the whole process of design, shows you how to think, how to verify, how to test and modify. His is a real mentor who gives you solid knowledge and solid experience by solid examples. So, I expected learn a lot from this new book.The book shows that it's more than my expectation. It keeps the good style, plus very valuable contents. It present at least 4 aspects which are very important and useful for today's programmers:* Agile method: The author show you you how to USE agile method. Still he tell you a lot about "Why". I'm not a XPer, but after reading the first several chapters, I think I'd give a try.* Object-Oriented Design Principles: The book concludes 11 O-O design principles. Only these principles are worth the price of the book to me.* Design patterns: This book teach you 23 design patterns with concrete examples -- 15 are GoF patterns, 8 are new. The emphasis is how to use patterns in real applications, instead of telling you what design patterns are and how to document them.* UML: This book is not about UML, but it uses UML to demostrate designs. To make you feet wet, it includes two appendics, show you basic UML with, again, concrete example. I find it's much easier for me to learn UML this way.Well, IMHO, this book is the best O-O design textbook this year, and I wonder whether there will be a better one in the next several years.