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Synopsis
In Building Business Applications Using C++: An Introduction to the Object Model, the author takes a "holistic" approach to examining object-oriented programming. Requiring no previous programming experience, this book features realistic business examples to demonstrate how objects can be used in team settings to solve "industrial-strength" problems. Readers will learn to view a problem in terms of interacting objects, with an emphasis on the importance of the class interface. With a firm grounding in the concepts of "interface," "class," and "object," the programmer will be better prepared to understand the design and implementation of programs using C++. For new programmers, this approach results in notable improvements in the organization, modularity, and focus of their programs. It also enables the experienced programmer to transition more easily from the procedural to the object model.
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About the Author
Email: lgarnett@newton.baruch.cuny.edu
From the Back Cover
the Object Model, the author takes a "holistic" approach to examining object-oriented programming. Requiring no previous programming experience, this book features realistic business examples to demonstrate how objects can be used in team settings to solve "industrial-strength" problems. Readers will learn to view a problem in terms of interacting objects, with an emphasis on the importance of the class interface. With a firm grounding in the concepts of "interface," "class," and "object," the programmer will be better prepared to understand the design and implementation of programs using C++. For new programmers, this approach results in notable improvements in the organization, modularity, and focus of their programs. It also enables the experienced programmer to transition more easily from the procedural to the object model. Features
* Assumes no prior programming knowledge.
* Illustrates how objects can be used to solve large-scale business problems whose requirements are in a constant state of flux.
* Provides information on multifile projects, a prerequisite for working in teams.
* Demonstrates incremental program development and emphasizes well documented classes.
* Emphasizes the importance of class design in producing cohesively coded modules with a minimal degree of dependency on other code.
* Shows how to design and implement a class interface before its methods.
* Covers essential, yet behind-the-scenes features of C++ like constructors, destructors and assignment operators, and positions the reader to explore new features of the C++ standard including templates, exception handling, and run-time.
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From the Inside Flap
The primary goal of this book is to introduce the reader to objects and classes at the very beginning of their study of C++. The aim is to develop in the reader a habit of viewing a problem in terms of interacting objects, and then to provide them with the necessary tools to design and implement a solution using the C++ language. I want the learner's "native" or "cradle" language for software development to be grounded in the concepts of "interface," "class," and "object" instead of "procedure," "algorithm," and "control structure."
The example problems used to illustrate C++ programming arise from the business environment. These range from common utility classes such as String and Money to more domain-specific classes such as Account, Mortgage, and Portfolio. The emphasis is on well-designed and documented interfaces. In contrast, analysis of the efficiency of methods is left to more advanced studies of C++.
For the last three years, I have used draft versions of this book to teach a one-year beginning programming course in the Business School of Baruch College. The end result of the approach to C++ as illustrated in this book is a marked improvement in the organization, modularity, and focus of students' programs. Introducing "interface" as the first topic makes abstraction the immediate focus. Students often have trouble with abstraction, but once they climb this hurdle, they use it to produce better work. The precondition and postcondition documentation in the interface helps keep the student focused on what task a method must fulfill.
In my experience, those who already know how to program procedures and think in terms of algorithms have difficulty giving interface design its proper due. These same programmers feel it necessary to know the internal details of the class implementation in order to use objects belonging to that class. Moreover, those who are used to procedural programming techniques have a tendency to overuse global identifiers. The object model encapsulates inside the object much of the data that its methods need, and in this manner reinforces better programming habits.
A secondary goal of this book is to encourage the habit of incremental software development. Too often beginners, and experienced programmers, write a huge amount of code before compiling and testing. Not only does incremental development provide a more controlled means for debugging code, but it also promotes the idea of class development as an evolving process. The book describes a process of incremental development that begins with the interface, and then uses method stubs to code the features of the interface, before working on the algorithm behind the method. Upon satisfactory implementation of the features in the original interface, the process returns to the interface to design and code more features. Beginning programmers find it easier to acquire a habit of incremental development from the beginning, but experienced programmers can benefit too. My own programming habits showed marked improvement as a side benefit of teaching this approach.
A third goal is to portray object-oriented programming as the art of tool building and a class as a "software tool." Programming teams work together to create and combine software tools to produce "industrial-strength" solutions. Programs are multiple-file affairs requiring the use of a project manager. The approach in this book is to use one file to store the class interface, another file to store the class methods, and other files for sending messages to objects belonging to that class. This approach lends itself to the tool-building model through the separation of the class interface from its implementation. The class interface serves as a contract between the tool builder who codes the logic of the class methods and the tool user who sends messages to objects belonging to that class. Although the overhead is higher initially, the reader becomes a tool builder and learns how to use existing classes to build new ones.
And What If You Are Not a Beginner. . . .Understanding object-oriented programming is impossible without understanding the object model. Many existing C++ programs are not object oriented. By putting the object concepts up front and building a framework for the object-oriented paradigm, the book makes it easier for an experienced programmer who is familiar with the procedural model to make the transition to object-oriented programming with C++.
The correct use of C++ as an object-oriented programming language requires more than just an understanding of the object model - it also requires knowledge of the backbone features that all classes possess. These include constructor, destructor, and assignment operators.
The Standard Template Library (STL), adopted by the ANSI/ISO C++ Standards Committee, provides a toolbox of classes for managing collections of objects. STL relies on the programmer to realize the importance of the aforementioned "backbone" members. Moreover, the programmer must know how to overload comparison operators for any class whose objects belong to a sorted collection.
An understanding of object-oriented concepts is essential to many endeavors not directly targeted to coding in C++. Understanding object-oriented concepts is the key for moving from C++ to Java. Microsoft's OLE (object linking and embedding) is becoming a standard for tying together independent applications. Powersoft is a client/server database application development tool that incorporates a middle tier between the front-end client and back-end database. This middle tier consists of classes of nonvisual objects that can be used for encapsulating business logic. Powersoft's literature says that the first step in learning to use such a tool is to "obtain an OO education."
ApproachIf you had to sum up this book's approach in one word, that word would be "interface." Coding starts with the interface. Interface implementation means coding and testing the feel of the class interface before designing the methods that make the interface functional. Only after the interface is tested and satisfactorily documented does attention turn to design of the methods. The presentation of top-down, structured algorithm design is covered in the context of method design. Although playing a secondary role to interface, algorithm design is very important and is covered in the first part of the book.
From the start, the book takes a holistic approach. The reader sees both sides of object-oriented programming (OOP): implementation as well as the use of classes. The interface is the channel of communication between implementors and users. The beginner will obtain a reasonable understanding of both abstraction and details.
Most of the examples in this book belong to the problem domain component of object-oriented design. These are the classes that do the behind-the-scenes work. These nonvisual objects encapsulate business logic such as figuring out the market value of an investment, tracking the outstanding principal on a mortgage, and so on. Other types of examples include utility classes that fulfill a more generalized need such as the String and Date classes. The book downplays those classes that fall into the categories of graphical user interface (GUI) or data management. GUI and data management classes are specialty areas and implementation of these classes would distract from the fundamental object concepts covered by the book. The marketplace is providing an ever-increasing supply of GUI class libraries. Moreover, there is a lot of activity currently to extend database management systems to provide object storage capabilities.
This book covers a subset of the C++ features that support the object model. C++ is a hybrid language based on the C language and it contains many features that do not support the object model. In addition to emphasizing those features of C++ that do support the object model, this book also recasts the non-OOP features of C++ in light of the object model.
Innovative FeaturesPresentation of the object model and an overview of the role objects play in problem solving before coverage of the C++ language.
Emphasis on the class interface as the first step in writing C++ code.
Incremental implementation of a class. Through the use of method stubs, implementation and testing of a class interface occur before implementation of the algorithms behind the methods.
The separation of a class implementation into two files from the very beginning. This promotes the abstraction of what a class can do and separates that abstraction from the class implementation.
Using projects to coordinate teams of programmers. "Industrial-strength" software requires separate teams of programmers.
Organization of files into separate "include" and "source" directories for facilitating sharing of classes.
Presentation of pointers as a mechanism by which one object contains or is associated with another object.
Emphasis on class design issues. One entire chapter is devoted to the backbone methods for classes. These include methods that are implicitly given default behavior unless explicitly defined by
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