Dear Walter,
Implementation
patterns are partly different in different languages. What is considered a reasonable practice in Ruby would be sneered at in Java code. Sometimes this is because of the structure of the language, sometimes it stems from the prevailing culture around a language. The principles and values in Implementation Patterns work in any language and fundamental thesis, the importance of communicating with other people, does too.
The first book I wrote was The Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, basically the same scope as Implementation Patterns but applied to Smalltalk. I started IP with the outline of the earlier book, but many of the patterns are quite different.
I chose Java because it is the lingua franca of programming at the moment and because I already knew Java. I can imagine writing a whole series of XXX Implementation Patterns books to explore the differences between languages, but that would be a different project.
Regards,
Kent Beck
Three Rivers Institute