Reviews for Object Thinking (DV-Microsoft Professional)

1. Complicated and nonetheless vague

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, March 12nd, 2009

   This is an important issue but a very bad book. The author goes on and on about vague concepts with practically no examples or relation to the real world and does so using words that no normal person understands and quoting people no-one knows.

2. Zen and the Art of Computer Programming Maintenance

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2005

   As an Extreme Programmer this book was given to me as a present from a 'Java Guru' who declared it to be the zen enlightenment text for all coders. It is a refreshing change from the normal teach-by-example technical books, with an obvious axe to grind.

   'Everything is an object' is the fundamental premise of the text. Manager or Controller classes will become a thing of the past and we should all march gladly into this brave new world leaving behind the unenlightened unwashed untermensch with their pathetic procedural code which masquerades as being object-oriented just by virtue of existing in separate 'Class' files.

   It is a glorious read for much of the book, but suddenly it seems to drown in its own smugness. You can almost see the buddha glow of the author as he describes the perfect development environment (you get the feeling the developers are reluctantly leaving the realm of pure thought to engage in a moment of Object creation which will persist timelessly and be reusable by all developers to come).

   Programmers of the future will no longer need to create objects, they will already exist and all we will be doing is combining them in creative ways to create our applications.

   Groovy Man.

3. Not Particularly Practical

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2004

   This book has many good ideas but is badly written, is full of mistakes (most annoyingly where diagrams and associated text dont match) and lacks the details you'd need to apply large amounts of what it teaches.
   
   If you really want to learn about object thinking, and most importantly how to apply it, then I'd recommend starting with the books of Robert C. Martin and Craig Larman. "Applying UML And Patterns" and "Agile Software Development" are both superb books.

4. Frustrating

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2004

   Before writing this I read many other reviews of this book and was glad to find I wasnt alone in having problems with it. Firstly you need to have a very good grasp of English (and in a few cases a thesaurus at hand) to read it. Secondly the ideas are great but the presentation is bad (for example not showing us concrete examples of self evlauating rules). Lastly there are LOADS of mistakes that make it a very frustrating read, I got so bored of finding places where the diagrams and text in the book disagreed.

   I recommend every programmer should get a book about object thinking but I dont think this is the one to buy.

5. Why object thinking is important

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2004

   If you want to understand "Why OO?" then this is the book that does it. This is not a technology flavour of the month cookbook but a serious consideration of the philosophy and principles behind OO and where objects really fit in the world of software development. Although academic in style I found it very readable, but this does not mean it is an easy read. David West unashamedly champions the agile movement and provides a sound theoretical and philosophical basis as to why it should, can and does work, in spite of the loud misgivings of the software engineering establishment. This means that the subject matter takes some serious thinking about. I often found myself re-reading passages just to make sure I really understood what was being said. Some parts struck an immediate chord whereas others were so at odds with everything I've been taught that I battled to overcome the instictive rejection.
   I think this book should be read by anyone connected with software development, management included. Even if you don't agree with the author's rationale you'll have a much better idea of how an increasingly large part of the developer community is thinking.