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"Preface Why this book? Why should you read this book? The short answer is to study software design from a structured but hands-on perspective and to understand different models of control flow, memory, dynamic behavior, extensibility, etc. Software complexity and the growing impact of legacy systems motivate a renewed interest in software design and modeling. We emphasize design (and construction) in this text, using and contrasting C# and C++. Many CS texts are 'learn to' books that focus on one programming language or tool. When perspective is so limited to a specific tool or programming language, high-level concepts are often slighted. Students may gain exposure to an idea via a 'cookbook' implementation and thus fail to truly absorb essential concepts. Students and/or practitioners can understand and apply design principles more readily when such concepts are explicitly defined and illustrated. Design, not just syntax, must be stressed. The progression of programming languages, software process methodologies and development tools continues to support abstraction: software developers should exploit this abstraction and solve problems (design) without being tied to a particular syntax or tool. Software design and modeling are neither new nor trendy topics. Software development often focuses on immediate effect: implement, test (minimally) and deploy. Yet, the complexity, scale and longevity of modern software require an intricate understanding of a software system as a whole -- components and relationships, user interfaces, persistent data, etc. To accommodate existing use while preserving longevity, a software developer must look forward for extensibility and backward for compatibility. Hence, software developers must understand software design. "--
List of contents
Section I: Software Construction. Software Complexity and Modeling. Software Development. Section II: Software Fundamentals. Functionality. Memory. Design and Documentation. Section III: Software Design. Structural Design. Behavioral Design. Design Alternatives and Perspectives. Section IV: Software Durability. Software Correctness. Software Longevity.
About the author
Adair Dingle is a professor of computer science and software engineering at Seattle University, Washington, USA. She holds a B.Sc in mathematics from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA; a M.Sc in computer science from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA; and a Ph.D in computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas, USA. She is coauthor of the book, C++: Memory First, and her work has been published in numerous refereed journals and conference proceedings. Her research interests include computer game dynamics, efficient memory management for object-oriented programming languages and applications, and patterns as tools for software engineering education.
