Design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software | Guide books

Design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented softwareJanuary 1995

Authors:
Erich Gamma
Taligent, Inc., Cupertino, CA
,
Richard Helm
DMR Group, Montreal, P.Q., Canada
,
Ralph Johnson
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana
,
John Vlissides
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY

Publisher:

Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
75 Arlington Street, Suite 300 Boston, MA
United States

ISBN:978-0-201-63361-0

Published:02 January 1995

Pages:

395

Available at Amazon

Bibliometrics

Abstract

No abstract available.

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Contributors

Erich Gamma
International Business Machines
- Publication Years1988 - 2006
- Publication counts22
- Citation count5,434
- Available for Download8
- Downloads (cumulative)6,660
- Downloads (12 months)938
- Downloads (6 weeks)122
- Average Downloads per Article833
- Average Citation per Article247
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Richard Helm
Boston Consulting Group Inc.
- Publication Years1986 - 2006
- Publication counts21
- Citation count6,254
- Available for Download17
- Downloads (cumulative)13,792
- Downloads (12 months)1,121
- Downloads (6 weeks)154
- Average Downloads per Article811
- Average Citation per Article298
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Ralph E. Johnson
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Publication Years1985 - 2016
- Publication counts119
- Citation count8,322
- Available for Download75
- Downloads (cumulative)51,591
- Downloads (12 months)4,353
- Downloads (6 weeks)544
- Average Downloads per Article688
- Average Citation per Article70
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John M Vlissides
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
- Publication Years1988 - 2003
- Publication counts38
- Citation count5,885
- Available for Download10
- Downloads (cumulative)10,660
- Downloads (12 months)695
- Downloads (6 weeks)78
- Average Downloads per Article1,066
- Average Citation per Article155
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Index Terms

Design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
    2. Software development techniques
      1. Reusability
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types
        Object oriented languages

Reviews

Reviewer: Pavol Navrat

In the past I have articulated my vision of books that serve both as a source of knowledge and as a reference for both students and practitioners. (See my review of Sommerville's monograph on software engineering [1].) Gamma et al. have taken an important step towards that goal with their book on design patterns. The book is in fact “only” a catalog, but what would be just a standard handbook for engineers in other fields is a genuine leap in the development of software engineering. The book consists of six chapters, three appendices, a bibliography, and an index. The first chapter is an introduction to the notion of patterns and how they are described and used. The second chapter is a case study that shows some of the patterns used in designing a document editor. The chapter also includes a catalog of design patterns. The authors classify the patterns by purpose into three groups: creational patterns (chapter 3), structural patterns (chapter 4), and behavioral patterns (chapter 5). Chapter 6 concludes the presentation. I have successfully used this monograph as a textbook. I selected design patterns and this book for a course called “Selected Topics in Software Engineering,” offered to postgraduate students. Although the monograph is not intended as a textbook, for my purpose it proved quite suitable. We worked hard, and my students (some with considerable experience in object-oriented design) became enthusiastic about the possibilities for sharing expertise opened by catalogs of patterns in this book. I especially appreciate the precision of the formulations involved in such methodological concepts as abstraction, generality, specialization, and so on. These concepts are frequently misinterpreted or used in a confusing manner, even in serious and otherwise excellent literature. I admit that when writing my critique I was not able to refer to many works that would provide examples to help clarify the distinctions between abstract and general, or concrete and specific. In this book one finds, for example, the Bridge pattern, which embodies the abstract-to-concrete link. The authors realize that the inheritance concept within a class hierarchy links specific to general, but is not appropriate to link concrete to abstract because these are different concepts and because we frequently need to express both abstraction and generality, which requires different mechanisms. The Bridge pattern is an excellent solution. I fully concur with the opinion of the other reviewer (Rev. 9509-0650) that this book is a ground-breaking monograph. The outcome of a great amount of work is offered with creative insight and a sense for what is essential. This results in a catalogued body of knowledge that is on the right path and sets the correct course to the future of software engineering.

Reviewer: Donald J. Bagert

Despite the many advantages of the object-oriented para<__?__Pub Fmt hyphen-point>digm, there can be a steep learning curve for people immersed in structured analysis and procedural programming, since software development has to be conceptualized in a much different way than the one to which they are accustomed. Nonetheless, since thinking in object-oriented terms is usually a more natural way to solve a complex problem (since it allows for a more accurate model of the problem domain), it eventually wins acceptance from most practitioners who learn and use it. Reading this textbook, which introduces the concept of design patterns, is similar. In the preface, the authors warn the reader, “Don't worry if you don't understand this book completely on the first reading. We didn't understand it all on the first writing!” I can certainly agree with that from my own experience, but I also agree with another statement from the preface: “Once you understand the design patterns and have had an `Aha!' (and not just a `Huh__?__') experience with them, you won't ever think about object-oriented design in the same way.' This is indeed a ground-breaking work. This book is not so much about object-oriented design as it is about object-oriented architecture. It borrows heavily from concepts developed by Christopher Alexander 20 years ago in defining a pattern language to design buildings and develop cities. The central idea is that certain problems occur frequently when formulating a design, and these problems can be described by a pattern. This pattern should include a solution that is easily usable, flexible, and adaptable. The authors are not defining reusable objects, but creating reusable designs. One example pattern is Composite, which facilitates the creation and manipulation of whole-part object hierarchy trees (for example, when several different windows might be used to provide different views of the same information). Design patterns are classified by purpose; Composite is an example of a pattern that has a structural purpose, since it primarily deals with the composition of various classes and objects. A design pattern can also be classified as having behavioral purpose (if it primarily concerns the interaction of objects) or creational purpose (if it deals with object instantiation). Research into object-oriented architectures is not new. Most such approaches, however, have dealt with the definition of megaobjects, which have many of the same features as traditional software objects, but can be used on a larger scale. By defining these patterns, the authors instead define and classify common obstacles that occur during object-oriented design, and provide the framework for overcoming those obstacles in a way that can be used in a wide variety of problem domains, applications, and implementation languages. Each of these patterns contains a core set of classes, which are usually needed in order to use this pattern solution. The first chapter gives a brief introduction to design patterns, while the next chapter provides a case study. Chapters 3 through 5 provide a catalog of all of the design patterns defined by the authors, with one chapter devoted to each of the three purpose types. Each pattern is described in detail, including sample code in various common object-oriented programming languages. The final chapter is an all-too-brief conclusion. There are several useful appendices as well as a large and comprehensive list of references. The inside covers are filled with useful information; the front inside cover contains a summary and a page pointer for all of the patterns covered in chapters 3 through 5, while the inside<__?__Pub Caret> back cover displays various diagram notations and an E-R diagram describing the relationships between the different patterns. This book is significantly lighter than any other hardcover book of its size that I have encountered, possibly because it is printed on recycled paper. The only thing this book lacks is more case studies: a major step in effectively implementing this methodology is determining how to select and use the design patterns that the authors provide. It should be noted, however, that design patterns are something that one learns thoroughly by applying them. This book is intended for software engineering practitioners and researchers with a strong understanding of object-oriented design; as previously mentioned, it is not for the casual reader. For people who have the aforementioned background, the desire to take the next conceptual step, and the time and patience to read and reread this work, I enthusiastically recommend it.

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