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Object Design/Roles, Responsibilities, and Collaborations Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, and Alan McKean. 2003. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. 399 pages. ISBN: 0-201-37943-0. (GSQE Body of Knowledge area: Software Engineering Process)
This is a "how-to" book with minimal theoretical content. However, its "how-to" approach is generic and low-tech, with little technology-specific discussion since it deals with design approaches and techniques one could use on paper as well as on a computer. It tries to teach, as the title suggests, "object design" without regard for tools to implement such approaches or techniques. Indeed, most of the graphics to illustrate design techniques are of index cards and large sheets of paper. The book takes a "behavioral approach to designing object-oriented software" using responsibility-driven design (RDD) (developed by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock) as its conceptual framework. Covering the philosophy and basics of RDD seems to be the best way to review this book.
RDD is described in Chapter 2 as "an informal method" offering "techniques for honing your thinking about how to divvy an application's responsibilities into objects and...