Rating: 
Summary: EXCELLENT job of explaining the "why"
Review: I'm just a guy who has been professionally programming in Lotus Notes for several years and wanted to make the switch to java and incorporate it Notes projects and stand-alone Java apps. I'm learning it on my own - I recommend finding a mentor because I KNOW that learning would be SO much faster that way - and went through several books and classes without really understanding some java basics.After all the books I have tried to read I finally found one that is right up my alley! It's called OBJECT ORIENTED DESIGN IN JAVA by Mitchell Waite and Robert LaFore. It's several years old and some of the syntax might be deprecated but it does an EXCELLENT job of explaining the ways , and more importantly, the WHY's of designing a program a certain way. By doing so, they explaing the ins and outs of Java!
Rating:
Summary: A superb, thorough treatment of potentially difficult topic.
Review: I've been involved with OO Design for over 10 years, and thought I knew it all. This book is more than an excellent introduction to methodology for novice programmers - it's also an excellent reference for how to apply patterns in the real world using Java. This book packs an amazing amount of clear and concise material into a surprisingly cheap package. I'm sorry to say, I paid full price for it - and it was still a bargain. Everything from UML to Beans to RMI to Web development. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT job of explaining the "why"
Review: If you aren't a beginner at OOD you might find this a little light reading. For me it's been a perfect and thorough introduction to the vast topic. My programming history has been mostly procedural (Foxpro, C) and an ugly mix of pseudo objects and procedural (Visual Foxpro, C++). It's one thing to learn the Java syntax and there are several books that can help you get up to speed with that, from Horton to Horstmann, etc. It's quite another to learn how to put it all together in a rational efficient way and actually build an application according to OO principles. In the first four chapters this book has already had me scrambling to redesign my current project accordingly. At first that seemed intimidating, but the immediate payoff has been code that makes a lot more "sense", even to me, the original programmer. One thing is annoying, and that is the obligatory chapter on Java syntax, basic data types, control structures, etc. Why bother? There is no point in reading this book until you've at least finished, say, Ivor Horton's Beginning Java. They could have left it out. Also, the version of Java they talk about is 1.1 so it's a little out of date. However, I haven't come across anything specific yet that is impacted by this. Overall, 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Good enough for me
Review: If you aren't a beginner at OOD you might find this a little light reading. For me it's been a perfect and thorough introduction to the vast topic. My programming history has been mostly procedural (Foxpro, C) and an ugly mix of pseudo objects and procedural (Visual Foxpro, C++). It's one thing to learn the Java syntax and there are several books that can help you get up to speed with that, from Horton to Horstmann, etc. It's quite another to learn how to put it all together in a rational efficient way and actually build an application according to OO principles. In the first four chapters this book has already had me scrambling to redesign my current project accordingly. At first that seemed intimidating, but the immediate payoff has been code that makes a lot more "sense", even to me, the original programmer. One thing is annoying, and that is the obligatory chapter on Java syntax, basic data types, control structures, etc. Why bother? There is no point in reading this book until you've at least finished, say, Ivor Horton's Beginning Java. They could have left it out. Also, the version of Java they talk about is 1.1 so it's a little out of date. However, I haven't come across anything specific yet that is impacted by this. Overall, 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for real Beginners
Review: If you have no idea of what the OOD is all about, this book is a good resource to start. I read first 4 chapters in 2 hrs. and I'm sure so will you. It'll introduce you to all the terminologies but if you're looking for indepth study and more advanced programming and designing techniques, try smething else.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for real beginners
Review: If you're new to programming, this is a very good book. It begins slowly and never pushes too quickly ahead. If you've achieved some programming mastery, you may well find yourself wading through a lot of fluff to get to the core.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Java, It's ALL about objects! And this book will teach you objects! The basic syntax to Java is easy to learn, but Objects and Object design is the key to java! This book explains object design, ploymorphism, encapsulation and inhertiance perfectly!
After this book THEN you can go back to the other books like Deitel "How To Program in Java".
Once you master Objects...Java is CAKE! In my college course the definition of an object is "an instance of a class" Wow..that tells me alot.
The most difficult part of Java is learning Objects.
Read this book...learn objects...then the rest of java is easy!
Very very very very good book on objects!
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Java, It's ALL about objects! And this book will teach you objects! The basic syntax to Java is easy to learn, but Objects and Object design is the key to java! This book explains object design, ploymorphism, encapsulation and inhertiance perfectly!
After this book THEN you can go back to the other books like Deitel "How To Program in Java".
Once you master Objects...Java is CAKE! In my college course the definition of an object is "an instance of a class" Wow..that tells me alot.
The most difficult part of Java is learning Objects.
Read this book...learn objects...then the rest of java is easy!
Very very very very good book on objects!
Rating: 
Summary: A mediocre book which treats many subjects superficially
Review: Obviously I disagree with all the reviewers who gave this book five stars. I will restrict my comments to two specific things. First, in chapter 6, ("Round-trip design") the authors show a work-group finding classes and filling out CRC cards before they have written their use-cases. This seems downright incomprehensible to me. You have to define the behavior of your system and its interactions with its typical users before you can start defining classes, responsibilites, and collaborations. Their example only seems to work because it is trivial -- a meeting-scheduler program. Much more serious is Chapter 11, Patterns, where the discussion of the "Command" pattern just doesn't make sense. If you go and look it up in the original book, "Design Patterns," the pattern is as clear as glass and as sound as a bell. If you then return to the book under discussion and look carefully at the sample code, it is clear that the authors do not understand the use of the pattern. A "command" object is used to pass a command on to an object which is not known at compile time (among other things); in the example at hand, the authors' command object simply executes the command on the spot (draws a red triangle or whatever). I have no patience with computer books which do not understand the concepts which they claim they are making me understand.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: The best book I've seen on OOD, and I've got a shelf devoted to this topic alone. More conversational in tone then most technical books, it read easily, while presenting concepts clearly. I'm very impressed!
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