Overview

Design by contract is an underused--but powerful--aspect of the object-oriented software development environment. With roots in the Eiffel programming language, it has withstood the test of time, and found utility with other programming languages. Here, by using both the Eiffel and Java languages as guidance, Design by Contract, by Example paves the way to learning this powerful concept. Through the following six teaching principles, the authors demonstrate how to write effective contracts and supporting guidelines. Readers will learn how to: *Separate queries from commands *Separate basic queries from derived queries *Write a postcondition for each derived query that specifies what result can be returned *Write a postcondition for each command that specifies the value of every basic query *Decide on a suitable precondition for every query and command *Write invariants to define unchanging properties of objects Contracts are built of assertions, which are used to express preconditions, postconditions and invariants. Using the above principles, the authors provide a frank discussion of the benefits, as well as the potential drawbacks, of this programming concept. Insightful examples from both the Eiffel and Java programming languages are included, and the book concludes with a summary of design by contract principles and a cost-benefit analysis of their applications. Design by Contract, by Example is the first book of its kind to offer an example-based approach to learning this important paradigm. If you are a developer seeking a way to improve your craft, this book will give you the necessary understanding of the concepts of contracts in software design. 0201634600B08142001

Full Product Details

Author:   Richard Mitchell ,  Jim McKim
Publisher:   Pearson Education (US)
Imprint:   Addison Wesley
Dimensions:   Width: 18.80cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 23.60cm
Weight:   0.530kg
ISBN:  

9780201634600

ISBN 10:   0201634600
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   29 October 2001
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   Out of stock  

Table of Contents

Foreword. Preface. 1. A First Taste of Design by Contract. About This Chapter. The Customer Manager Example. Some Questions. A Contract for CUSTOMER_MANAGER. The Story So Far. Runtime Checking. Trustworthy Documentation. Summary. An Aide Memoire. Things to Do. 2. Elementary Principles of Design by Contract. About This Chapter. Stacks. Separate Commands and Queries. Naming Conventions. Separate Basic Queries and Derived Queries. Specify How Commands Affect Basic Queries. Capture Unchanging Properties in Invariants. The Class and Its Contract. The Basic Queries Are a Conceptual Model of Stacks. The Six Principles. Things to Do. 3. Applying the Six Principles. About This Chapter. Dictionaries. Separating and Categorizing Features. Postconditions. Preconditions. Invariant. A Complete, Contract-Level View of DICTIONARY. Summary. Things to Do. 4. Building Support for Contracts—Immutable Lists. About This Chapter. Support for Linear Structures. Contracts Involve Expressions. Immutable Lists. A Contract for Immutable Lists. The Basic Queries. The Creation Command. The Derived Query Count. The Derived Query Preceded_by. The Derived Query Item. The Derived Query is_equal. The Derived Query Sublist. Summary. Things to Do. 5. Applying the Six Principles to QUEUE. About This Chapter. Queues. A Contract for the Remove Feature. Making Count a Derived Feature. A Contract for the Initialize Feature. A Contract for the Head Feature. A Contract for the put Feature. More Derived Queries. Summary. Things to Do. 6. Design by Contract and Inheritance. About This Chapter. Superclasses and Subclasses. Redefining Contracts. Eiffel Syntax. Summary. Invariants and Inheritance. Designing Superclasses with Guarded Postconditions. Two Kinds of Inheritance. Summary. Things to Do. 7. Frame Rules. About This Chapter. Change Specifications and Frame Rules. Frame Rules for put Using Immutable Lists. Frame Rules for put Using “Forall”. Kinds of Frame Rules. Things to Do. Appendix: More About the Preprocessor. 8. Benefits of Design by Contract. About This Chapter. Kinds of Benefits. Better Designs. Improved Reliability. Better Documentation. Easier Debugging. Support for Reuse. Design by Contract and Defensive Programming. Defending a Program Against Unwanted Input. Bulletproofing a Routine. Defensive Programming. Some Costs and Limitations of Contracts. 9. Contracts for an Observer Framework. About This Chapter. The Observer Framework. Immutable Sets. Attaching and Detaching Observers. Notification (For One Observer). Notification (For All Observers). A Performance Issue. Frame Rules. Privacy. Things to Do. 10. Fulfilling a Precondition. About This Chapter. The Examples. Fulfilling and Testing a Precondition. Testing Versus Checking. A Simple Counter Class. The User's View of the Program. The Internal Structure of the Program. The Program's Behavior. A Minor Detail. Summary. Things to Do. 11. Java Examples. About This Chapter. Why Java? Queues. The Basic Query size(). The Basic Query get(). The Derived Query head(). The Derived Query isEmpty(). The Derived Query shallowCopy(). The Constructor Queue. The Command put. The Command remove. Summary. Dictionaries. Names. The Invariant. The Basic Queries. A Derived Query. The Commands. The Constructor. A Possible Set of Classes. Java Without iContract. Precondition Testing. Things to Do. 12. Analysis by Contract. About This Chapter. A Use Case. Contracts in Analysis Models. A Contract for the withdrawCash Use Case. From Analysis to Design. Problem Domain and System Models. The Object Constraint Language. Summary. Bibliography. Index. 0201634600T10102001

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Author Information

Richard Mitchell is a senior consultant with InferData Corporation, specializing in object-oriented analysis and design. Before joining InferData full-time in 1999, he was a Professor of Computing at the University of Brighton, UK, where he was involved in teaching and researching object technology. Jim McKim is Clinical Professor and Chair of the Department of Engineering and Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Hartford, Connecticut. He has been teaching and consulting in the area of object oriented software development for some 10 years. Over the same period he has authored or coauthored numerous articles on Design by Contract for such publications as the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming and IEEE Computer. 0201634600AB08142001

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