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Author/s : Dragos Manolescu, Markus Voelter, James Noble
Publisher : Addison-Wesley Professional
Category : Design Patterns, UML, and Refactoring
Review by : Jeanne Boyarsky
Rating : 7 horseshoes</pre>
"Pattern Languages of Program Design 5" is the latest in a series output by the PLoP (
pattern languages of programming) conferences. A pattern language is a group of higher order design patterns that go together to form a vocabulary for a specific problem.
Each chapter stands on its own and is written by different people. This makes the format all over the place - each chapter is somewhat different. Some of the content is fairly specialized. There are chapters on real time systems, radio and pattern writing. While all of these are fascinating, they are unlikely to appeal to the same group of practicing developers.
At times, the book feels academic. It is probably supposed to as it is on introducing new patterns to the world. I felt there was a strong emphasis on contributing to PLoP and writing new patterns.
That said, each chapter was very good on its own. The authors were all interesting and explained the topic clearly. There were good examples and the quality was high.
I recommend this book if interested in PLoP or pattern writing in general. If you've read #4 in the series, you will definitely find this one enjoyable. If not, I would recommend starting with #1 in the series. There are some backward references to earlier books, so it would be easier to follow.
More info at Amazon.com More info at Amazon.co.uk
