Archive for August 2024

Freely accessible books

Recently I prepared some of my books for free access on the Web (after gaining agreement from the publishers). Here are the corresponding links. They actually point to pages that present the respective books and have further links to the actual PDF versions.

Although the texts are essentially those of the books as published, I was able in most cases to make some improvements, in particular to the formatting, and to introduce some hyperlinking, for example in table of contents, to facilitate online navigation.

If you cite any of these books please use the links given here. Then you know that you are referring your readers to a legal and up-to-date version. In particular, there are a plethora of pirated copies of Object-Oriented Software Construction on various sites, with bad formatting, no copyright acknowledgment, and none of the improvements.   academia.edu hosts one of them, downloadable. I wrote to them and they did not even answer.

Here are the books and the links.

  • Introduction to the Theory of Programming Languages (Prentice Hall, 1990):  A general introduction to formal reasoning about programs and programming languages. Written without a heavy formal baggage so as to be understandable by programmers who do not have a special mathematical background. Full text freely available from here.
  • Object Success (Prentice Hall, 1995): . A general presentation of object technology, meant in particular for managers and decision-makers, presenting the essential OO ideas and their effect on project management and corporate culture. Full text freely available from here.
  • Object-Oriented Software Construction, 2nd edition (Prentice Hall, 1997): . The best-known of my books, providing an extensive (and long!) presentation of object technology, with particular emphasis on software engineering aspects, including Design by Contract. Introduced many ideas including some of the now classic design patterns (Command, called “undo-redo”, Bridge, called “handle” etc. Full text freely available from here.

In addition, let me include links to recent books published by Springer; they are not freely available, but many people can gain free access through their institutions:

  • Touch of Class: An Introduction to Programming Well Using Objects and Contracts. My introductory programming textbook, used in particular for many years for the intro programming course, altogether to something like 6000 students over 14 years, at ETH Zurich (and nourished by experience). The Springer page with  the text (paywall) is here. There is also my own freely accessible book page with substantial extracts (read for example the chapter on recursion): here.
  • Agile! The Good, the Hype and the Ugly A widely used presentation of agile methods, serving both as tutorial and as critique. The Springer page with  the text (paywall) is here. There is also my own freely accessible book page with substantial extracts: here.
  • Handbook of Requirements and Business Analysis (Springer, 2022). A short but extensive textbook on requirements engineering. The Springer page with  the text (paywall) is here. My own book page, which will soon have substantial extracts and supplementary material, is here.

Also note the volume which I recently edited, The French School of Programming, Springer, 2024, with 13 chapters by top French computer scientists (and a chapter by me). The Springer page  is here.

My full list of books is here. Full publication list in chronological order: here.

 

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