
 Ask HN: What are some good books for understanding OOP?  - skowmunk
Hi,<p>I am a novice programmer, currently self-learning, would really like to understand Object Oriented Programming well. Can anyone suggest some books that are good at explaning OOP for beginners?<p>Thanks for the help in advance.
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philwelch
The most important thing to realize is that "object-oriented programming"
isn't a well defined term. If you don't know what it means and you pick up
books about Smalltalk or CLOS, you won't really have a good grasp on the
corporate C++/Java/C# environments you might be thrown into, and if you get a
job interview that asks "explain OOP to me", they won't have any fucking idea
what you're talking about, because by "OOP" they mean Java and by "OOP" you'll
mean Smalltalk or CLOS. Likewise, if you pick up a Java book, it'll take you
awhile to figure out what Smalltalkers, Lispers, and Rubyists are on about.

Unfortunately, the C++/Java conception of OOP has had a much better sales team
since the 90's or so, so you can get sucked into that universe and never find
your way out again. So learn OOP from multiple perspectives.

~~~
phamilton
In situations like those, I feel like OOP is some of the most buzzword laden
areas of CS.

Things like "Cohesion", "Layering", "Polymorphism", "Abstraction", etc.

They are all great concepts with a lot of important principles, but I drives
me nuts how often I've heard them used excessively.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I would put <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle> at
the top of the list of things to understand. Language features like
polymorphism and encapsulation aren't exclusively OO but they're provided
because they help your designs follow LSP.

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gruseom
In my opinion, Eric Evans' _Domain Driven Design_ is just about the only book
that gets OO right. Martin Fowler's _Refactoring_ is pretty good on the
technical side of things. I would avoid design patterns like the plague (edit:
other than the Kent Beck Smalltalk book, which lots of smart people like -
this is the one recommended by duck in this thread), but others disagree.

Don't take this as advice against learning what you want to learn, but I'd
caution against the idea that "object-oriented programming" and "good
programming" are the same thing (or even that they are correlated). OO in its
various incarnations comes with a tremendous amount of baggage. It took me
years to figure out I didn't need it, and that insight made me a much better
programmer.

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mschwar99
I know you asked for a book, but as a fellow self taught person I remember
this video being really valuable to me when trying to get my head around OOP.

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058469682761344178...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058469682761344178#)

It is an older video of Dan Ingalls of Smalltalk fame explaining objects. I
clearly remember a large light bulb going off in my head as he walked through
his analogy of a hospital described as an object.

This certainly isn't comprehensive, but if you are stuck on the concept its
helpful to hear someone talk it out.

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flgb
I think this document provides a good introduction for a beginner:
[http://www.runningcode.com.au/Resources/Aitken-
Framework4OO....](http://www.runningcode.com.au/Resources/Aitken-
Framework4OO.pdf)

C2 is another resource worth checking out. C2 is the original "wiki". While
its not always coherent and will structured, there are some real gold nuggets
here: <http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ObjectOrientedProgramming>

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flojito
I would recommend you OOSC (Object oriented software construction) by Bertrand
Meyer. A mammouth book. Its length, which could be a hindrance, is its best
point: you'll have plenty of explanations for every concept.

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YooLi
Since you say you are a novice, I'd recommend Head First Design Patterns:

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596007124>

Do not jump in with the GoF Design Pattern book. :)

~~~
abecedarius
I thought that book was very well done, in terms of getting its lessons into
your head -- but the lessons gave poor advice on the subject. (I don't
remember specifics, it's been years.)

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briandoll
Object-Oriented Design Heuristics: <http://amzn.to/hMfVA6>

This is a fantastic book on OOP design principals and has lots of language-
agnostic examples.

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abecedarius
I don't know of any books that sound exactly right for you, but here are a
couple I like that are relevant. You might find them kind of advanced right
now:

* Chapter 3 of <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/> \-- also chapters 1 and 2.

* _Abstraction and Specification in Program Development_, on design by contract. There's a newer book by the same authors, _Program Development in Java_, but Norman Ramsey says it's not as good. (I've only read the older one.) By Liskov & Guttag. Focuses on abstract datatypes rather than OOP classic. Bertrand Meyer's _Object-Oriented Software Construction_ covers much of the same material, but not as well to my taste in the bits I dipped into.

* Also, _Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation_ at <http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/64> \-- this might be more basic than the above two. The ideas were old to me by the time I got to it, so I don't know how well it'd work for a novice.

* I've seen _A Little Smalltalk_ recommended as an intro to OO and it looks plausible: <http://www.littlesmalltalk.org/index.php?page=the-book> \-- I haven't read it myself.

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dtsingletary
The Object-Oriented Thought Process ( [http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-
Thought-Process-3rd/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-Thought-
Process-3rd/dp/0672330164/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291357348&sr=1-1) )
isn't a perfect book, but it's not a bad one. It refers too much to other
books, but combine that with a language text and you should get the concepts
pretty well.

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felideon
* Smalltalk Objects And Design by Chamond Liu

* The Art of the Metaobject Protocol by Gregor Kiczales

Don't let the second one fool you. Although it is a Lisp book, it presents OOP
design principles applicable to any language. As the Amazon review says: "The
Art of the Meta-Object Protocol is useful for the advanced CLOS user as well
as for anyone interested in object-oriented programming and language design."

~~~
gruseom
Do you really think AMOP is suitable for a novice?

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duck
Check out "Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns":
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/013476904X/>

Lots of OO classes use it and Smalltalk is a great language to learn OO with
(but even if you don't use it, the general information will be a big help).

~~~
abecedarius
That's an excellent book, and relevant, but I wouldn't say it directly answers
the question: it's more about coding-in-the-small than object orientation.
(Those subjects can shade into each other, it's true.)

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thornkin
I found the first chapter of Design Patterns to be the most enlightening
description of OO programming I have found.

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andre3k1
I have an intense desire to contribute to the Chromium Project, however, I too
am a programming novice. I know a bit of Java, but not much else.

I understand that this is a monumental end goal given my current situation,
but can anyone point me in the direction of the best tutorial books that money
can buy?

Good karma for anyone that responds :)

~~~
manvsmachine
you may want to check this out: [http://www.aaronboodman.com/2010/10/wherein-
i-help-you-get-g...](http://www.aaronboodman.com/2010/10/wherein-i-help-you-
get-good-job.html)

It seems that your first step is to to find good C++ resources:
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/155762/best-c-resource>

Hope this helps.

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meadhikari
Object Oriented Programming by Timothy Budd. Its the starting book that I got
and is proving very helpful to me.

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photon_off
I highly recommend Head First Java, which focuses on OOP using Java. The
entire Head First series is very well written, and focuses on practical
_learning_ rather than reference or academia as a lot of the suggestions do.

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skowmunk
Thank you all for the suggestions. Its given me a lot of food for thought.

