systems analysis and design

I had a great opportunity to know the author of this book in person: I took Dr.Budd's course on Object-oriented programming in Oregon State University in Fall 2000. We used this book in class throughout the term, and thus all of us were compelled to read this book from cover to cover.

The principal point I would like to emphasize is that the book really is about the Object-Oriented Concepts. It is not a "guide how to aply OO-principles in C++", it is not an "Object Pascal OO-programming". No. The book is about general concepts of Object-oriented Programming not bounded to any particular OO-language. Although sometimes it was really difficult to understand some of the ideas, the good point was that the author did not try to make the things simpler. If something was difficult to understand - this only meant that it was that Real Blue Thing whose perception makes you a cool programmer.

However, the illustrations in the book (at least in the edition I obtained) were not very good, but rather poor. Had they been made by a profeccional designer, I would have rated the book with 5 stars. So far, it's only 4.

I used this text for an OOP course I taught to college sophomores whose previous background was Pascal and C. I chose this book because, almost uniquely in the field, it was NOT tied to one specific language and that language's OOP idiom, but rather pointed out significant differences among C++, Java, Smalltalk, Objective-C, and two different Object Pascals in their views of OOP. (I was disappointed by the absence of multi-dispatch languages such as CLOS from the list.) Budd introduces each major principle and programming construct in practical but language-independent terms, then illustrates how that construct is specified in several different languages.

I found Budd's treatment of the basic concepts much simpler, clearer, and less jargon-laden than that in Booch. My students had some trouble, but they got through much of the book, whereas I can't imagine them wading through Booch at all. I still like the interlingual approach, but I would advise teachers using the book to pick two or three of the languages and simply ignore the rest of the examples, to avoid confusing students too much.

I haven't found the ideal text for this course, but Budd is at least a pretty good one.

I've read a number of introductions to object-oriented design and programming. This one is the best all-around introduction that I have seen. It starts in the real world, with a discussion of how one plans and organizes a task (sending flowers to a significant other) that requires more than a single person to get done. That's a pleasant change from texts that begin with Dauntingly Dry Definitions ("encapsulation", "inheritance", and my favorite, "polymorphism").

To the author's credit, he avoids launching into inheritance until Chapter 8, by which time he has laid enough groundwork to reduce the concept to common sense. Other concepts are presented in a similar manner.

Note that this book is a survey book, not an in-depth programming manual. You won't learn C++ or Delphi, or any of the other half-dozen languages used for the book's examples. And the book focuses on concepts, rather than implementation. you won't learn how to implement a Singleton pattern in C#, although you will learn what it is and why it is useful. Finally, the book assumes familiarity with traditional, procedural programming. This is not a Programming 101 text.

I would recommend this book enthusiastically as a starting point for anyone making the transition from traditional programming to OOP. If you are moving to the DotNet platform, I have created a list ("So you'd like to ... Transition to DotNet") with some other recommended texts.