Object-Oriented Analysis and Design With Applications

Mixed opinions about the book. The author never claims that beginners can easily understand nor he warrants that you need not know C++. It may take sevaral months or years to read this book. If you say you know this book for 100%, you are only few steps away from Booch's level. His process is great if we have the time, patience and comfort to follow it and apply it. You should have some prior knowledge of OO to understand Booch's language. Of course C++ basics. Though the chapter on Booch Notaion is dated, you still need to read it to follow the remaining chapters. But if you have read UML, booch notation is not tough to understand. I wish he re-writes with additional Java examples and gives some business applications like banking/insurance examples rather than Gardening Sensors and Heaters, and also drop notations chapter and assume that readers know UML. It will be great if he guides us how his process fits into the internet era within tons of frameworks/patterns around.

If you want to understand OO(object orientation)/OOA/OOD, this is THE place to start. Booch writes in a clear, concise and interesting way. That's very hard to do in technical writings. The chapters are organized in a very thoughtful and correct way. In many ways, his Booch notation (presented in this book) is even better than the current version of UML for understanding how the notation applies to classes and objects. You may know C++ or Java language implementations, but the best foundation is a generic knowledge of OO. This book goes a long way to presenting this knowledge. Go for it!

After reading the other reviews I have a few comments.1. In 1994 when this book was published Java was in development and had no ways near the popularity it has today. (According to Cay Hortsmann Java did not burst onto the scene until late 1995)2. Bertrand Meyer's book is great and contains valuable wisdom, but all of its examples are in Eiffel. While Eiffel is a great language what are my chances finding a job writing Eiffel.But really all of the above comments are pointless. The fact of the matter is that the concepts in an Object-Oriented book should be language independent. However, to be most effective authors reinforce abstract ideas by including concrete examples. Which means the author must pick a language or write in pseudo code. Booch's book is a valuable reference to be used in learning how to apply Object-Oriented concepts to the analysis and design portion of the software development process. It is up to you to know your own problem domain or work with experts who do. I personally write software that deals with weapon trajectories and weapon effects and just because the book does not have any examples on this domain does note mean it is not valuable. The job of this book is to teach me how to think in terms of objects and how to find and design my classes and class hierarchies. It succeeds, Thanks Grady Booch.

This is an vary cool book on object oriented methodology. It takes you from scratch and teach great aspects of programming methodology , before reading this book i was not knowing anything about object orianted methodology ,now I have enough knowledge on this topic so that i can understand any descussion on object orianted techniques. Basically this book gives me the way to think in objects.

I bought this book due to a positive comment in B. Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" bibliography. I was not dissapointed. This book covers everything from terminology, to useful notations, to actual application of techniques. I teach C++ as part of my job, and have found many design books to be shallow works which cover proprietary notations, with a few cookbook recipes thrown in. These books commonly show a lack of real development experience, and are more theory than practice. This is not the case with this book, which combines work from many different sources. It also consistently includes references to alternative opinions when covering controversial material. Mr. Booch stresses the need for intelligent, and sometimes ad hoc decisions which are based on good design principles, and are refined as a project evolves. But he doesn't stop there. He explains useful techniques and thought processes which are the primary tools of good OO A & D. This is one of the best design books I have seen to date.