| This book is about object-oriented programming in C++ on the Personal Computer. It is also about program development by a smaller sized programming team. The contents include topics related to software engineering, to object orientation, to systems analysis and design, to patterns and models, and to C++ programming. Although the material sometimes refers to implementation details, most of it is about application development. This activity is sometimes referred to as programming in the large, in contrast with the coding of routines or short programs, which are called programming in the small. For the most part, this book is about programming in the large.
Our notion of a smaller programming team is one that ranges from a single programmer to a programming group of no more than eight individuals. Our typical reader profile is a person with some programming skills in C++, perhaps equivalent to what results from having taken one or two undergraduate programming courses, or a comparable level of self-acquired skills. In other words, the book assumes some elementary knowledge of C++ programming and some level of familiarity with object orientation, but not a mastery of either topic.
Our principal goal in writing this book has been to collect, select, and interpret information from several fields of computer science (software engineering, system analysis and design, object-oriented methods, design patterns, and C++ programming) in order to provide a unified reference that allows taking a smaller development project from its initial conception to a successful completion. The keywords that describe our effort are collect, select, and interpret. Collecting implies putting together and interrelating elements that are usually dispersed. Selecting means choosing and picking the components that we think are more relevant and applicable. Interpreting implies that we have often tried to decipher and translate information into more understandable terms. |
