Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns

This book is mostly about object oriented programming and the Smalltalk programming language. It does have some good stuff about the basics that every programmer should know. Having a good foundation before starting a coding project is important, and this book is great for that. Nothing ground breaking here, but still pretty good for beginners who have never learned how to structure their code.

I'm always looking for ways to make coding work better, at any level from nanosecond arithmetic operations to decade-long enterprise operations. I didn't find much of use here, but there were a few good points here (very few). Let me start with those.The "Execute Around Method" pattern is good idea, applicable far beyond this Smalltalk context. The Beta language has "inner" inheritance, which makes the idea easy, but most other languages lack a good mechanism for undefined logic between matched operation pairs (open/close, setup/cleanup, etc.) "Enumeration" is another good one, enshrined as "Visitor" in the Gang of Four book.Most of what's left is either trivial or Smalltalk-specific and face it, Smalltalk is mostly a cult language with nearly no commercial significance. The Smalltalk pretty-printing and variable-naming rules, fatuous at best, are just not applicable to most langages. Some of Beck's "practices" are language features (like 'super'). Other "practices", like the long chapter on Collections, seem to describe standard library classes and messages. Yet others (e.g. Type Suggesting Parameter Name) correct language defects - Smalltalk chose to give up the error detection capability offered by variable typing. Beck tries to sneak it back in with variable naming conventions sort of like Microsoft's old Hungarian naming. Some of his suggestions are just dangerous, like that one that says a constructor should "half-way construct an object in one place, then pass it off to another to finish construction. (p.23)" This distributes an object's setup responsibility across its client classes, leaves unusable and incomplete objects floating around, and causes subtle exposures in multithreaded systems - I'd rip out any code I saw built this way.The good news is that no new trees died to make my copy of this book - I got it used, and it's returning to the used market. At least my conscience is clean on that account, no matter what I'm doing to the poor guy who buys this book next.//wiredweird

this is one of the books that I reach for all the time. I use it to explain many concepts and I don't even write smalltalk. I have a hard copy and digital. I've also given a copy away as a gift. this is a must have when trying to build a common vernacular. It has improved communication of ideas for every team I've worked with.

I wish more Java/C#/C++ programmers would read this (and maybe even learn Smalltalk) so that they can appreciate the weaknesses in those languages and possibly in their practices that they might not even realize today. I certainly did. While Robert Martin and others have offered up some of the canon of good design for contemporary developers, this little gem really reveals the "feel" of good OO.

You don't have to know Smalltalk to be able to learn from patterns presented, they are reusable in other object languages.

This book is great for learning design patterns even if you don't know smalltalk. This is a must read for developers.

Although not a recent book, it gives a great overview of sound object oriented coding practices. At the same time it is an excellent showcase of the beauty of Smalltalk.

I really enjoyed reading the book and 5 stars for the content. I also have a kindle version which does not get rendered well on any of the iOS devices. Code looks overlapped and completely unreadable.It looks great on kindle for Mac and kindle web reader.I just wish they formatted the content well.

but also for polymorphic messages and object-oriented programs in general. The book is worth it for not only the short, succinct code examples, where Smalltalk really shines, but also for the preface and introduction, which goes straight to the point, how perception of programming and its role shapes how you think about and approach the activity of programming. I have found its examples useful not only in the context of other object-oriented programming languages, but even for programming languages in other paradigms, and programming in general. It is not just about "low-level design" or programming idioms, but how you think about your day-to-day activities in programming. It does this without becoming philosophical, and instead does it by showing code examples with just enough explanation to get an understanding of the rest.I have found it much better the later book "Implementation Patterns" by the same author, which is just a lexicon of low-level idioms, which any programmer knows by heart, i.e. by doing, and doesn't stir the reflexions of the art of programming that this book does. It is difficult to pin-point the significant difference between the two books, but this one seems more pure hearted, not afraid, neither conventional nor industrial or dry, more fun, and coherent like a hard diamond in language, style, and examples. It is simply beautiful without being fashionable or flashy. While being a lexicon, it is more like a great disposition of small articles where the organization is as important as the content, and it has some of that flavor that the old Basic introductions of the 1980'ies had, the flavor of curiosity, fun, inspiration, and it leads by example and encouragement rather than dictating and advising in a misguided professional tone that so many other books do.It reminded why programming is enjoyable when you leave out everything else that doesn't add to its fullfillment and satisfaction.

I'm an Objective C developer, and as you know Objective C derives a lot from Smalltalk culture, including syntax. This book helped me a lot in class design, better code reuse. Some of the chapters are not applicable though, since Cocoa (Touch) provides different means for dealing with arrays, etc. But anyway. If you're going to become a (much) better class designer, this book will help a lot. Even if your language of choice stands well away from Smalltalk.

Was not the easiest read, also because I never programmed in smalltalk. But this book is full of very insightful tips to organize your code. It really made me think :)

I've downloaded this twice now. Each time the examples are unreadable on iPad and iPhone using the kindle app. I'll be asking for a refund for the second time in a week. Also first one was £32 now it's £22. The one star is for the service not the book.

Aunque se trate de un libro sobre Smalltalk, sus consejos son válidos en otros lenguajes "más modernos". Además la sintaxis de smalltalk permite que los ejemplos puedan mostrar la esencia del principio que ilustran.