bertrand@hub.ucsb.edu (Bertrand Meyer) (03/31/88)
NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT Object-Oriented Software Construction by Bertrand Meyer Prentice-Hall International, 1988 534+xviii pages ISBN, prices and ordering information: see end of this message. ----------------------------------------------------------- Summary for hurried readers: a software engineering approach to object-oriented design and programming. ----------------------------------------------------------- This is an in-depth presentation of the methods and techniques of object-oriented design and programming. The perspective taken is that of software engineering: how to apply the object-oriented approach to improving software quality and productivity in today's industrial environments. Special emphasis has been put on object-oriented techniques for building software that is reliable as well as extendible and reusable. The presentation uses the full extent of object-oriented techniques, with inheritance (in particular multiple inheritance) playing a fundamental part. The book introduces a number of original contributions, in particular the use of formal assertions in an object-oriented context with inheritance, the concept of programming as a contracting activity, a new and safe approach to exception handling, full static typing, renaming techniques for multiple inheritance, deferred classes for high-level design etc. The book relies for a large part on the Eiffel language and environment, which are a direct embodiment of the approach presented. It also describes other object-oriented languages, notably Simula, Smalltalk and C extensions. Techniques for implementing object-oriented concepts in non-object-oriented languages (from Fortran to Ada) are also discussed. STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 4): Issues and Principles. This part reviews the fundamental software engineering issues leading to the object-oriented approach. It analyzes in particular the problems of reusability and extendibility and discusses various aspects of modularity in software design. It introduces the fundamental concepts of object-based decomposition and describes the theoretical basis of the whole approach, abstract data types. Part 2 (Chapters 5 to 16): Techniques of Object-Oriented Design and Programming. This discusses the components of the approach: information hiding, classes, objects, assertions, programming by contract, disciplined exceptions, single and multiple inheritance, deferred classes, redefinition, renaming etc. This part is based on Eiffel. It places particular emphasis on design (as opposed to just implementation); one chapter is devoted to the design of class interfaces and another to high-level design techniques (finding classes, using inheritance properly etc.). Implementation issues are also discussed, particularly memory management, garbage collection, and programming environment tools (configuration management, automatic recompilation, debugging, documentation, cross-development). Part 3 (Chapters 17 to 21): Applying Object-Oriented Concepts in Other Environments. Emulating O-O techniques in Pascal, Fortran, C. The modular languages: Ada and Modula-2. Object-oriented languages: Simula, Smalltalk, C preprocessors. Part 4: Appendices. Eiffel syntax, basic Eiffel library etc. Bibliography (108 entries). Index. References: ISBN 0-13-629049-3 (Cloth), 0-13-629031-0 (Paper). Paper edition is not available in North America. Price: $37 (US), Pounds 19.95 (UK). The book may be ordered from booksellers or Prentice-Hall. It may also be ordered in the US from Interactive Software Engineering Inc., 270 Storke Road Suite 7, Goleta CA 93117 USA, Telephone (805) 685-1006, Fax (805) 685-6869. (Include $5 for postage and handling; in California add 6% sales tax.) In Europe the book may also be ordered from Societe des Outils du Logiciel, Centre d'Affaires 3MPP, 4 rue Rene Barthelemy 92120 Montrouge France, Telephone (+33) 1 46 57 13 36 Fax (+33) 1 46 57 01 03, Telex 205 359 F. (Price when ordering from S.O.L. is 300 French Francs including postage and handling). Note: The publication date is March 25. As the book was published by the International branch of Prentice-Hall in Britain, it may take a few weeks before it is widely available in US and Canadian bookstores.