From: Luke Galea <lgalea@...>
Date: 2005-04-01T03:00:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Complete beginner in programming

That's a great idea re: examining the classic design patterns from the point 
of view of a dynamically typed language. Also, considering meta-programming  
as well a book on dynamic design patterns would introduce new patterns and 
likely make others redundant.

On Thursday 31 March 2005 09:32, John-Mason P. Shackelford wrote:
> One of the best introductions to OO I've read a little book by Gary
> Entsminger called _The Tao of Objects: A Beginner's Guide to
> Object-Oriented Programming_. It's out of print so you may have to hunt
> for it on bookfinder.com.
>
> The code examples are dated (and in C++ and Pascal) but they are really
> superfluous anyway. If you want to understand why OO was born and what
> it can do for you, this is a good place start. It's short, sweet, and as
> motivational as a technical book ever was.
>
> Once you get excited about OO and begin using it the first design rule
> to learn is composition vs. inheritance. There is a good chapter on the
> subject in _Java Design_ by Peter Coad.
>
> After that learn how to write unit tests and begin learning design
> patterns. The classic text there is _Design Patterns_ by Erich Gamma,
> Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides, commonly called the
> Gang of Four or GoF, but the content of the book has been reproduced
> many times in various other texts and using different languages for
> examples. Any of those that contain a full catalog of the major GoF
> patterns will do.
>
> Eventually you'll want to read _Refactoring: Improving the Design of
> Existing Code_ by Martin Fowler, but some experience using design
> patterns will help.
>
> As far as I know there are no books on design patterns which use Ruby
> for code examples. If Dave is listening he might note that it would be
> an interesting project given that most design pattern texts are based on
> languages which are statically typed. It would be interesting to see
> what gems a pattern book for a dynamically typed language would contain.
>
>
> John-Mason Shackelford
>
> Software Developer
> Pearson Educational Measurement
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