The Art of Objects: Object-oriented Design and Architecture (Object Technology Series) (Paperback)

In this book, a leading software architect presents the rock-solid foundations of object design and architecture -- and the art of applying them. The Art of Objects will help analysts, architects, and developers fully leverage today's most important object tools and technologies, including Java, UML, XML, middleware, patterns, and much more. Its real-world case studies, examples, and exercises are designed in a holistic, forward-looking manner, ensuring that whatever technologies go out of fashion, readers will have the object skills they need to succeed. Yun-Tung Lau presents the language-independent fundamentals of object design; then provides a detailed overview of the Unified Modeling Language. Building from the basics, he presents advanced approaches such as object relationship loops, and relationship fission for analyzing complex object structures. The Art of Objects contains extensive coverage of persistent objects, including mapping to relational tables, event processing objects, distributed objects, CORBA, and the Interface Definition Language. It also introduces the latest XML object models.

Programming fads, languages, and tools may come and go, but the basic concepts of object design and architecture--and the art of applying them--are timeless. Once learned, they provide a solid foundation that software developers will build on throughout their careers.

The Art of Objects offers an extensive overview of the long-standing principles of object technology, along with leading-edge developments in the field. It will give you a greater understanding of design patterns and the know-how to use them to find effective solutions to a wide range of design challenges. And because the book maintains an approach independent of specific programming languages, the concepts and techniques presented here can be applied to any object-oriented development environment.

Using the Unified Modeling Language (UML), The Art of Objects examines numerous static and dynamic practical object design patterns, illustrated by real-life case studies that demonstrate how to put the patterns to work. You will also find discussion of basic concepts of database management and persistent objects, and an introduction to advanced topics in object modeling and interface design patterns. Moving beyond the design level, the book also covers important concepts in object-oriented architecture.

Specific topics include:

• Object creation and destruction, associations and links, aggregation, inheritance, and other object design fundamentals
• UML notation basics for static and dynamic modeling
• Common patterns in static design, including the object model for XML
• Relationship loops
• Persistent objects and object-relational mapping
• Advanced object modeling, including abstract classes, multiple inheritance, interfaces, inner classes, and components
• Dynamic object modeling, covering use case analysis, sequence diagrams, the client/server model, distributed objects, CORBA, and IDL
• Object-oriented architectures, including procedural processing, client/server, layered, multi-tier, and federated systems