wanted book recommendation for Object Oriented Programming

[Alex Martelli]

"Laura Creighton" <lac at cd.chalmers.se> wrote in message
news:mailman.991118562.3957.python-list at python.org...
    ...
> But I have found a hole.  I need a book every bit as excellent
> (and terse) as the rest of my list that teaches Object Oriented
> Programming to somebody who has never studied it.  If you know the

You may want to have a look at the second edition of Scott
Ambler's "Object Primer" (Cambridge University Press).  It's
not really about *CODING* -- it's more about process, notation
(too many diagrams for my heavily-verbal tastes, but most
people seem to like that), etc.  Haven't actually seen the
2nd edition, but I hear it's now out, and an improvement on
the first one, which was quite a decent piece of work (not
really to MY *personal* taste, but I freely acknowledge my
taste is not that of most people...).  In any case, visiting
http://www.ambysoft.com/theObjectPrimer.html should give
you enough info & pointers that you can make up your own mind!

Booch's "Object Oriented Analysis and Design, with Applications"
unfortunately fails your terseness-measure.  It IS truly excellent
otherwise.  Dated (a 3rd edition, with Booch should co-author
with Martin and Newkirk, is rumored, but don't hold your breath)
but, in a sense, timeless.  But it doesn't truly address the
beginner to OO.  And it's strongly focused on C++ -- you do say
you don't care about the programming language used, but C++ is
*horribly* complex... if a reader doesn't know it, the book's
worth would be seriously lessened for him or her.

Although I've never seen them myself, I've heard nothing but
good things about a couple books by Timothy Budd.  One was
titled, I believe, "The Little Smalltalker" (I'm quoting by
memory, this should be checked), and was said to focus cleanly
on OO principles and elementary concepts.  The other, something
like "Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming", was
multi-language and equally well-focused.  I believe Addison
Wesley was the publisher.  Sorry for the "second-hand" info,
but I believe you can get sample chapters of these books from
somewhere online, so making your mind up should be quite
feasible here...


Alex