rick@zeek.UUCP (Rick Wilhelm) (11/10/89)
I just received the mailing for a CS book club that I belong to, and two new OO books are among the featured selections this month. _Object-Oriented Environment in C++_ David Hu, Oct 89 MIS Press _Object-Oriented Analysis_ Peter Coad and Ed Yourdon, Oct 89 Prentice Hall The flyer says that: "David Hu is a programmer with Baldur Systems Corp., and the author of _C/C++ for Expert Systems_" "Peter Coad is a recognized authority and advisor on the pragmatic application of software development methods." "Ed Yourdon is widely known and the developer of the 'Yourdon Methodology' of structured systems analysis and design." Has anyone read these books and have an opinion on them? I realize that they are brand new, but maybe some of you have seen pre-release copies or are familiar with the authors and their theories. Another question: Does Ed Yourdon have the qualifications to write an OOD book considering that he also wrote _Modern Structured Analysis_? Is it possible that his ideas won't be purely OO? (Just speculation, no slander intended.) Having seen plenty of sub-par OO books, I am wary of shelling out dead presidents on others. But I have also spent money wisely on Lippman, Meyer, and others. What makes these books a good or bad investment? Please post or mail any thoughts. Thanks, rick uunet!zeek!rick : -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rick Wilhelm uunet!zeek!rick Andersen Consulting 312-715-5471 Advanced Systems Center, Chicago
rchen@m.cs.uiuc.edu (11/11/89)
/* Written 7:04 pm Nov 9, 1989 by rick@zeek.UUCP comp.lang.smalltalk */ /* ---------- "new OO books" ---------- */ > I just received the mailing for a CS book club that I belong to, > and two new OO books are among the featured selections this month. > > _Object-Oriented Environment in C++_ David Hu, Oct 89 MIS Press I bought the above book on OOPSLA'89 for $45 (book+diskette) and gave it away the second day. In my opinion, through out the whole book, only the title sounds attractive. About half of the book is irrelevant to C++ library (intro on Smalltalk and Objective-C, C++, etc.). And the other half is trivial C++ code, that you can write yourself after reading Stroustrup's C++ book. Besides, the code is useless (should I say re-useless? :-). The menu, pane, and other modules can only do what's shown in the book. If you are careful enough looking at the pictures in the book, you will know what I mean. In one sentence, everything is made up for selling the book! -Ron Chen @ Department of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign rchen@cs.uiuc.edu
beard@ux1.lbl.gov (Patrick C Beard) (11/11/89)
In article <271@zeek.UUCP> rick@zeek.UUCP (Rick Wilhelm) writes:
#I just received the mailing for a CS book club that I belong to,
#and two new OO books are among the featured selections this month.
#
#_Object-Oriented Environment in C++_ David Hu, Oct 89 MIS Press
#_Object-Oriented Analysis_ Peter Coad and Ed Yourdon, Oct 89 Prentice Hall
#
#The flyer says that:
#"David Hu is a programmer with Baldur Systems Corp., and the
#author of _C/C++ for Expert Systems_"
#
..
#Has anyone read these books and have an opinion on them?
I purchased "Object-Oriented Environment in C++" by David Hu, and
promptly returned it. The title of the book should have warned me. The
book reads just like the title, awkwardly.
The book attempts to compare SmallTalk, Objective-C, and C++ in an unbiased
fashion, but clearly shows the author's bias towards C++ (not that I don't
have a bias that way #:>). There are numerous typo's, they just jump out
at you, even in the index. The examples in C++ are full of mistakes, I can't
say how accurate the examples in SmallTalk and Objective-C are, but I would
expect that they are in error as well. The book then goes on to try to explain
using object oriented techniques to build a windowing system, using Zortech
C++. The code was full of DOS specific bios calls and was (IMHO) basically
useless as a teaching example. He spent more time explaining the details
of the code than talking about the rationales for the design (or lack of) used.
Anyway, I just skimmed the book and that was what I found. I am sure that
on a closer reading that I would've become absolutely infuriated with the
book. Thank goodness my local bookstore gave me a refund. I can't believe
the publisher would allow an author to get away with so many errors. I find
much more concise and useful information by reading comp.lang.c++.
A question to you all, are there any GOOD books on doing object oriented
programming? I have yet to see the book by Lippman, and am hoping it will
give me some help.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Patrick Beard, Macintosh Programmer (beard@lbl.gov) -
- Berkeley Systems, Inc. ".......<dead air>.......Good day!" - Paul Harvey -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------kcr@netxdev.DHL.COM (Ken Ritchie) (11/11/89)
NOTE: the reference was also cross posted to comp.lang.c++, but I don't expect as much interest there (I'm using comp.object, Y&C book threads dangle there). So... for "generic" OO threads, books, history, etc... GOTO comp.object, OK? In article <271@zeek.UUCP> rick@zeek.UUCP (Rick Wilhelm) writes: > >I just received the mailing for a CS book club [featuring new OO book...] >_Object-Oriented Analysis_ Peter Coad & Ed Yourdon, Oct 89 Prentice Hall >The flyer says: "Peter Coad [isa]... Ed Yourdon [isa]..." [...sorry folks, I couldn't resist such a gOOd joke! /kcr] > >Has anyone read these books and have an opinion on them? >Another question: Does Ed Yourdon have the qualifications to write >an OOD book considering that he also wrote _Modern Structured Analysis_? >Is it possible that his ideas won't be purely OO? > >What makes these books a good or bad investment? [pls post or mail thots] Go ahead and buy the book (P-Hall offers 15 day eval/return for the timid). I did, & I think it's decent -- especially if you are into analysis/modelling, or any serious application design/development. This book is not written for hard core programmers (see Meyer's OOSC) but for those who are the business' or user's advocate, or who are the user/analyst/systems/DP/project agent. The book is clearly written, reads well, & has concise "key point" summaries. I'd like it to be a bit longer, and elaborate the diagramming scheme more. Now, about Mr. Ed (Yourdon) -- he is [IMHO] a GREAT WRITER AND PROMOTER of the tidal waves of systems development methodologies. Over the past 2 decades, I have observed (1) consistently good quality of material and presentation, and (2) consistently advancing value in the concepts and methods exposed/promoted. I have bought most of the "YOURDON" books, often sight unseen, and am pleased. [My favorite "collector's item" is the 1975 "orange book", a typewriter-and- felt-pen manuscript from Larry Constantine's work, i.e. STRUCTURED DESIGN.] Ed's a smart guy, and he deserves credit for pulling it together like this. Not that Yourdon sat down and dreamed all this up alone, mind you, but he (a) knew enough about some real problems in this business, to (b) recognize a good method, or the germ of a great idea when he discovered someone with one, and (c) realized the need [a.k.a. market] among us worker bees for the stuff, so he (d) worked with these mavericks and innovators (Constantine, DeMarco, now Coad) to develop, systematize, polish, and present these goodies to us, in the form of newsletters, books, speeches, papers, videos, and consulting. I believe Ed has a compulsion to communicate. He has certainly earned his place as "the midwife of methodology!" [I hope you don't mind this, Ed!] Maybe he doesn't share as much of the authorship credit as he used to... BUT these guys have practiced what they preached... rather, they ended up preaching what they had practiced and succeeded with in their consulting. Ed Yourdon's original startup was going to be "Superprogrammers, Inc." -- until somebody in the NYC red tape circus denied them that business name. So, they became "YOURDON inc." The name stayed, even though Ed didn't. I think you'll be safe with Ed, not avant guarde (OO started 2 decades ago), but certainly in tune with the times. I predict that Yourdon will assist in the birthing of a few more OO babies before he turns in his green robe... [Don't get run over by a gurney, OK Ed?] and he'll help usher the OO offspring along from the white-coat labs and blue-jean campuses into the pin-stripe world of business -- from Wall Street to Cape Kennedy, and Zurich to Rome. Of course, he might fool us and retire on his royalties, but he'd get bored. Right now, he's probably scouting around to see what's coming along next! (Mid 60's: modules; mid 70's: structures; mid 80's: objects; mid 90's: ????) (Don't forget the intermezzos: "relational" and "logic/knowledge/AI" stuff.) Best wishes to you, Rick, and other fellow pilgrims on this OO exploration. I hope my notes will be inspiring/useful to you or someone in this business. _______________________________________________________________________________ Ken Ritchie (aka KCR) Usenet: ...!uunet!netxcom!netxdev!kcr NetExpress Communications, Inc. 1953 Gallows Rd, Suite 300 FAX: USA (703) 749-2375 Vienna, Virginia (USA) 22182 Voice: USA (703) 749-2268 "One must learn to think well before learning to think. Afterward, it proves too difficult!" -- Anatole France Disclaimer: We have over 100 people here, and each one has an opinion or two... _______________________________________________________________________________
jamesd@qiclab.UUCP (James Deibele) (11/12/89)
In article <271@zeek.UUCP> rick@zeek.UUCP (Rick Wilhelm) writes: >I just received the mailing for a CS book club that I belong to, >and two new OO books are among the featured selections this month. [...] >_Object-Oriented Analysis_ Peter Coad and Ed Yourdon, Oct 89 Prentice Hall > >Has anyone read these books and have an opinion on them? >I realize that they are brand new, but maybe some of you have seen >pre-release copies or are familiar with the authors and their theories. > >Another question: Does Ed Yourdon have the qualifications to write >an OOD book considering that he also wrote _Modern Structured Analysis_? >Is it possible that his ideas won't be purely OO? >(Just speculation, no slander intended.) I get the distinct impression that Coad wrote most of the book, and that Yourdon was added for name recognition, but I might be wrong. (_OOA_ showed up Thursday FedEx'd from Prentice-Hall, which would normally make me pay attention, except John Quarterman's new book, _The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide_ was in the same box. I'm reading it with pleasure instead. Recommended.) However, while I chose to bring _The Matrix_ home for a little rainy Sunday reading, I did also bring home a copy of "The Hotline on Object-Oriented Technology," a new newsletter published by the same folks who do "Journal of Object-Oriented Programming" and "The C++ Report." This is a pretty spendy newsletter, at $249/year for charter subscribers, especially considering that it's only 24 pages long. (212) 972-7055 to subscribe if you wish. In this issue, Norman Kerth of Elite Systems reviews _OOA_. He's impressed by the fact that Coad/Yourdon show how OOP techniques can be used with extremely large systems while still addressing the limitations of the OOP approach. The methodology they use consists of five major steps: identifying objects; identifying structure; identifying subjects; defining attributes; and defining services. There are several examples for each step, along with case studies showing how the OOA methodology was used. Kerth praises the book for several reasons: for being well-written, for analyzing the history of objects (demonstrating that the authors have used the techniques in the real world), and for not claiming that their relatively young methodology is completed or the answer for all problems. He "highly recommends" the book. (The ISBN for this book is 0-13-629122-8, and the list price is $29.80 (odd price). For those interested, _The Matrix_ is 0-13-565607-9 and $50.00.) -- James Deibele jamesd@qiclab BBSs: (503) 760-1473 or (503) 761-7451 TECHBooks: The Computer Book Specialists --- Voice: (503) 646-8257 12600 SW 1st Beaverton, OR 97005 --- Book reviewers wanted for computer science & electronics - contact us for more information.