"Epoch-making" Journal of O-O Programing
"Destined to become the comprehensive and definitive reference" Software Development
"The ultimate O-O guide" Unix Review
"Arguably the best work on the subject" John Dvorak in PC Week
"Read this book and you'll immediately be a better programmer" David Wall at Amazon.com
"If you program computers, you need to read this book" Official Amazon.com review
"A magic, magnificent and indispensable book" Preface to Spanish edition

Winner of the award, the industry's top prize for best software development book.

Object-Oriented Software Construction, Second Edition

BERTRAND MEYER

ISE Inc., Santa Barbara

Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference. Published 1997. Available from all good technical bookstores (and from ISE, see below).

The reviews are in!

1254 + xxviii pp.
Soft cover
ISBN 0-13-629155-4

If you have trouble finding the book, or your bookstore does not carry it, please drop us a note with the name of the bookstore.

You can also order the book from ISE and even request it to be autographed. Price including postage and handling:

$79.95 (USA), $99.95 (outside USA, air mail), $129.95 (outside USA, UPS).

Order here.

OVERVIEW

Object-Oriented Software Construction, second edition is the comprehensive reference on all aspects of object technology, from design principles to O-O techniques, Design by Contract, O-O analysis, concurrency, persistence, abstract data types and many more. Written by a pioneer in the field, contains an in-depth analysis of both methodological and technical issues.

Two-color printing provides for clear figures and readable software extracts.

Comes with a CD-ROM containing: the complete hyperlinked text, for easy reference; software to read the text on major industry platforms; supplementary material (reusable components, mathematical complements); and a complete graphical O-O development environment supporting the concepts of the book.

CONTENTS

Contents

Preface

Foreword to the second edition

About the accompanying CD-ROM

Part A: The issues

1: Software quality

2: Criteria of object orientation

Part B: The road to object orientation

3: Modularity

4: Approaches to reusability

5: Towards object technology

6: Abstract data types

Part C: Object-oriented techniques

7: The static structure: classes

8: The run-time structure: objects

9: Memory management

10: Genericity

11: Design by Contract: Building reliable software

12: When the contract is broken: exception handling

13: Supporting mechanisms

14: Introduction to inheritance

15: Multiple inheritance

16: Inheritance techniques

17: Typing

18: Global objects and constants

Part D: Object-oriented methodology: applying the method well

19: On methodology

20: Design pattern: multi-panel interactive systems

21: Inheritance case study: "undo" in an interactive system

22: How to find the classes

23: Principles of class design

24: Using inheritance well

25: Useful techniques

26: A sense of style

27: Object-oriented analysis

28: The software construction process

29: Teaching the method

Part E: Advanced topics

30: Concurrency, distribution, client-server and the Internet

31: Object persistence and databases

32: Some O-O techniques for graphical interactive applications

Part F: Applying the method in various languages and environments

33: O-O programming and Ada

34: Emulating object technology in non-O-O environments

35: Simula to Java and beyond: major O-O languages and environments

Part G: Doing it right

36: An object-oriented environment

Epilogue

Part H: Appendices

Appendix A: Extracts from the Base libraries

Appendix B: Genericity versus inheritance

Appendix C: Principles, rules, precepts and definitions

Appendix D: A glossary of object technology

Appendix E: Bibliography

Index

Reviews

Unanimous critical praise:

Roger Smith in Software Development:


Object-Oriented Software Construction, second edition will be appreciated by the developer community even more than the first edition, if that is possible. In my unbiased opinion [...] it is destined to become the comprehensive and definitive reference for most methodological and technical questions raised by object technology. Its width and breadth of scope is impressive, from object-oriented techniques like Design by Contract and inheritance, to methodology issues like patterns and class design, to advanced issues like concurrency and persistence.

Charles Ashbacher in Journal of Object-Oriented Programming (JOOP):



Rigorous in approach, packed with quality, complete in coverage and occasionally humorous, this book is on my permanent reference shelf and will no doubt look bad after a while. But only the physical aspects such as covers and spine will be worn out. The ideas will live forever, at least in the context of the computer world.

Craig Patchett, from an on-line review at amazon.com:


 

A definitive guide to object oriented programming and design. Meyer has not only managed to create a book that covers virtually every aspect of the field; he has done so in a way that is very readable and that puts everything into context in addition to going into specific details. Highly recommended.

Ian Graham in JOOP:

 

Epoch-making.

Sanjiv Gossain in JOOP:

 

One of my favorite books on the subject of objects has been revised and updated. [...] Bertrand Meyer has done an excellent job of incorporating a multitude of new topics into the original work, and yet retaining the authoritative, informative style of the text. As one reads the book, one soon realizes that this is an author who believes in what he is writing. The ideas come through wonderfully.

Stan Kelly-Bootle in Unix Review:

 

The ultimate O-O guide.

David Wall at Amazon.com:

 

If you buy only one object-oriented programming book, it should be Object-Oriented Software Construction. One of best computer books ever written, this book walks you through the author's outstanding solutions to programming problems. Read this book and you'll immediately be a better programmer. That may seem like a strong statement, but this book deserves every accolade.

Official Amazon.com review:

 

The developer of the acclaimed Eiffel programming language comes through with one of the clearest and most informative books about computers ever committed to paper. Object-Oriented Software Construction is the gospel of object-oriented technology and it deserves to be spread everywhere. [...]

If you program computers, you need to read this book.

Luis Joyanes Aguilar in his Preface to the Spanish edition:

 

The excellent and immense work of Bertrand Meyer ... will be the obligatory reference on object-oriented software in the years before and during the third millenium...

OOSC-2 is not just a magnificent, magic and indispensable book to learn how to build O-O software: it will enable its reader to reach excellence in the world of software.

From the reviews of the first edition

Ron Levine in Software (IEEE):



Tour de Force... Meyer succeeds admirably in leading the patient reader ... through a presentation of the fundamental software development issues that is independent of any programming system, language or application area... Well organized and highly readable... Meyer's high standards for precision of expression do not interfere with a literate style or preclude the occasional injection of humor.

Bill Watts in .EXE (London):

 

Meyer writes like an angel.

Pierre America in Science of Computer Programming:

The book presents the concepts in an orderly manner and explains them very well. It is even more attractive because it presents a technique of object-oriented design.

Walter Zintz in Unix World:

The author believes in OOP, has the experience to know that it works, and is willing and able to show us why and how... The clear choice for software people who want to dive straight into object-oriented programming.