Implementation Patterns [Paperback]

Kent Beck,one of the software industry’s most creative and acclaimed leaders, consistently challenges software engineering dogma and promotes ideas like patterns, test-driven development, and Extreme Programming. Currently affiliated with Three Rivers Institute and Agitar Software, he is the author of many Addison-Wesley titles, includingTest-Driven Development(2003) and, with Cynthia Andres,Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition(2005).

This is a book about programming—specifically, about programming so other people can understand your code. There is no magic to writing code other people can read. It’s like all writing—know your audience, have a clear overall structure in mind, express the details so they contribute to the whole story. Java offers some good ways to communicate. The implementation patterns here are Java programming habits that result in readable code.

Another way to look at implementation patterns is as a way of thinking “What do I want to tell a reader about this code?” Programmers spend so much of their time in their own heads that trying to look at the world from someone else’s viewpoint is a big shift. Not just “What will the computer do with this code?” but “How can I communicate what I am thinking to people?” This shift in perspective is healthy and potentially profitable, since so much software development money is spent on understanding existing code.

There is an American game show called Jeopardy in which the host supplies answers and the contestants try to guess the questions. “A word describing being thrown through a window.” “What is ‘defenestration’?” “Correct.”

Coding is like Jeopardy. Java provides answers in the form of its basic constructs. Programmers usually have to figure out for themselves what the questions are, what problems are solved by each language construct. If thlã`