Book missing from python line-up?

[Martijn Faassen]

Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 25 May 2000 13:27:15 +0800, Nick Bower
> <N.Bower at ses.curtin.edu.au> declaimed the following in comp.lang.python:

>> 
>> If one of Python's goals is to be a good teaching language, shouldn't
>> there be a book about OOP using Python, rather than the current books on
>> Python with only chapters on OOP?

> 	I would first split things a bit... Forget OOP until /after/
> devouring a book on OO DESIGN (maybe a good book on UML).

I think too much focus on OO design may be overkill. There's a lot of
stuff being written about OO design, but you won't be able to understand
much of it without some basic experience in practice with an OO language.

> 	After that, it is just a matter of mapping the design onto the
> capabilities of the language -- it's not easy, but one could implement
> an OO design even using FORTRAN (it just wouldn't be obvious as one
> would need to "manually" create the inheritance structure and
> name-mangling to handle "overloaded" methods).

Now, I agree with this part; OO could be taught in a language independent
manner, by showing how to do the same things in multiple languages. In 
fact, there is such a book: 

Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming
By Timothy Budd

I've learned from the first edition, which features C++, Objective C,
Smalltalk and Object Pascal examples. The second edition also includes
Java, I think. It's a good book.

> 	After a grounding in "object" concepts, one shouldn't need that
> much more to learn the specifics of an OO language, so a chapter or two
> on OOP in that language should be sufficient.

That's probably true. But you can only gain a good grounding in object
concepts by actually doing it yourself. *afterwards* you can start to
understand things like design patterns, refactoring, OO design,
UML, the works. Before it will remain interesting theory but won't ring
much of a bell.

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
History of the 20th Century: WW1, WW2, WW3?
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