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Object-Oriented Software Construction

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This is, quite simply, the definitive reference on the most important development in software technology for the last 20 years: object-orientation. Object-Oriented Software Construction is a book by Bertrand Meyer, widely considered a foundational text of object-oriented programming. The first edition was published in 1988; the second, extensively revised and expanded edition (more than 1300 pages), in 1997. Numerous translations are available including Dutch (first edition only), French (1+2), German (1), Italian (1), Japanese (1+2), Persian (1), Polish (2), Romanian (1), Russian (2), Serbian (2), and Spanish (2). The book has been cited thousands of times in computer science literature. The book won a Jolt award in 1994. The second edition is available online.

The book, often known as "OOSC", presents object technology as an answer to major issues of software engineering, with a special emphasis on addressing the software quality factors of correctness, robustness, extendibility and reusability. It starts with an examination of the issues of software quality, then introduces abstract data types as the theoretical basis for object technology and proceeds with the main object-oriented techniques: classes, objects, genericity, inheritance, Design by Contract, concurrency, and persistence. It includes extensive discussions of methodological issues.

Table of contents
Preface etc.
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, In Full Frankness Exposing the Language
Part H: Appendices
A Extracts from the Base library
B Genericity versus inheritance
C Principles, rules, precepts and definitions
D A glossary of object technology
E Bibliography
Index

592 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1990

About the author

Bertrand Meyer

82 books23 followers

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