Java™ Design: Objects, UML, and Process

1.0. Principles, Patterns, and the OO Paradigm

By this time, we've all been saturated with the benefits of objects. Reuse is the Holy Grail of object orientation. Unfortunately, a lot of the works discussing object orientation exist at such a theoretical level that they can be difficult to interpret and apply pragmatically, or these works exist at such a detailed level that it can be difficult to derive a concise vision of the paradigm in its entirety. Understanding concepts such as abstraction, inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism is wonderful, but they are just concepts and don't provide much guidance in creating more reusable and highly maintainable systems. In fact, our discussion in this book assumes a basic understanding of these ...