What s New in the Second Edition

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What's New in the Second Edition

As stated often in this introduction, my vision for the first edition was primarily a conceptual book. Although I still adhere to this goal for the second edition, I have included several application topics that fit well with object-oriented concepts. These applications include the following:

Object modeling
Object persistence
XML
Objects and the Internet
The enterprise
Design patterns

The chapters that cover these topics are still conceptual in nature; however, several of the chapters include Java code that shows how these concepts are implemented.

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The Intended Audience

This book is a general introduction to fundamental OO concepts. The intended audience includes designers, developers, project managers, and anyone who wants to gain a general understanding of what object orientation is all about. Reading this book should provide a strong foundation for moving to other books covering more advanced OO topics.

Of these more advanced books, one of my favorites remains Object-Oriented Design in Java by Stephen Gilbert and Bill McCarty. I really like the approach of the book, and have used it as a textbook in classes I have taught on OO concepts. I cite Object-Oriented Design in Java often throughout this book, and I recommend that you graduate to it after you complete this one.

Other books that I have found very helpful include Effective C++ by Scott Meyers, Classical and Object-Oriented Software Engineering by Stephen R. Schach, Thinking in C++ by Bruce Eckel, UML Distilled by Martin Fowler, and Java Design by Peter Coad and Mark Mayfield.

While teaching intro-level Java to programmers at corporations and universities, it quickly became obvious to me that most of these programmers easily picked up the Java syntax. However, these same programmers struggled with the OO nature of the language.

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This Book's Scope

It should be obvious by now that I am a firm believer in becoming comfortable with the object-oriented thought process before jumping into a programming language or modeling language. This book is filled with examples of Java code and UML diagrams; however, you do not need to know Java or UML to read it. After all I have said about learning the concepts first, why is there so much Java code and so many UML diagrams? First, they are both great for illustrating OO concepts. Second, both are vital to the OO process and should be addressed at an introductory level. The key is not to focus on Java or UML, but to use them as aids in the understanding of the underlying concepts.

The Java examples in the book illustrate concepts such as loops and functions. However, understanding the code itself is not a prerequisite for understanding the concepts; it might be helpful to have a book at hand that covers Java syntax.

I cannot state too strongly that this book does not teach Java or UML, both of which can command volumes unto themselves . It is my hope that this book will whet your appetite for other OO topics, such as OO analysis, object-oriented design, and OO programming.

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