What Every Programmer Should Know about Object-Oriented Design

I read this book when it first came out and at the time, considered it the best book on the theory of object-oriented programming ever written. While the contents are now somewhat dated, it is still an excellent reference. One of the most impressive aspects of the book is the coverage of the term "connascence." The following is the definition as it appears on page 183. Connascence between two software components A and B means either 1. that you can postulate some change to A that would require B to be changed (or at least carefully checked) in order to preserve overall correctness, or 2. that you can postulate some change that would require both A and B to be changed together in order to preserve overall correctness. The reason why I consider this so critical is because so many errors in software are due to improperly managed or understood linkages between components. They are often the most difficult bugs to find, because the components can work correctly as stand-alone code, but fail when interacting. Therefore, even though this book was published over a decade ago, it still contains one of the best explanations of the principles of object-oriented programming ever written.

I already had a book from this writer (Meilir Page-Jones). So, I expect no less than high quality. I was not disappointed. This is one of the best books that I know of that can be bought about object-orientation. The problem with most other books, that is all other books that I have seen, is that they usually sink very quickly in the mud pool of the teeny weeny details of some object-oriented language. And before you know it the language syntax is discussed and the object-oriented principals are totally forgotten or at its best difficult to extract.This writer never looses track of the subject he is trying to explain, namely: object-oriented design. As far as I can judge this is about the only book that succeeded to do this. This despite a lot of other books and highly acclaimed writers. On top of that this book is well structured, well built, and, God forbid, actually fun to read!My advice, run to the bookstore and buy this book!

I have always said that you should read everything you can get your hands written by Meilir Page-Jones. This book is no exception!

This book covers the basics concepts of object-oriented design before moving into the more advanced areas of design principles, which is where it excels and is extremely valuable. It also contains an object-oriented design notation, although we have plenty of those, these days. I covet mine, as it is the best text on oo-anything I've seen yet. An absolute must-read for anyone doing any work with object-oriented concepts.