Subject: Re: [Dev] Reading Circle

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 13:02:13 -0500

> I think waiting a couple of weeks is a good idea.  Maybe end of
> February?  Beginning of March?

I talked to my colleague who wants to attend, and it's the 2nd and 4th
Saturdays that he's free.  So, if it's OK with everybody else, I'd like
to suggest doing the 2nd and 4th.

If we go with that, the next meeting day would be next Saturday, the
23rd of February, or else the 9th of March.  I'm was thinking about this...
maybe we could establish March 9th as the first "real" meeting, but since
Brent apparently has the conference room for next Sat. maybe we could
go ahead and get together, kinda informally and chat for a while.

If nothing else, we could talk about how the meetings are going to work,
and whatever other miscellani comes up, and then maybe grab some lunch
or something.  At worst it would be chance for some of us to meet, who
might not have met in real life before, and spend an hour or so chatting
about geek stuff. :-)

> get the book.  Guess I need to order it from bookpool.com as that seems
> to be the cheapest deal so far.  Are we all agreed on the 'Design
> Patterns' book as the first?

Well, I haven't heard any objection to that, so I guess so, basically.  The
only thing that comes
to mind is the possibility of doing what the Boulder patterns group did.
They started with
a different patterns book: "DesignPatternsExplained: A New Perspective on
Object Oriented Design",
written by AlanShalloway and JamesTrott.  Apparently it's considered more
of an introductory
level book on the subject?  So, might we want to do that, then go on to the
GoF book?  Or
would you guys just want to jump into the GoF right away?  Maybe that's
something we
could discuss this coming Sat., if we have a "prelim" meeting.

Whatever the rest of the gang wants to do is, of course, fine by me.

TTYL,

Phillip

Phillip Rhodes
Application Designer
Voice Data Solutions
919-571-4300 x225
[email-masked]

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---

From: Bill Vinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 14:03:49 -0500

> go ahead and get together, kinda informally and chat for a while.

I think this is an excellent idea.  It will give everyone some time to 
get whatever book and look it over, but will also give us a chance to 
meet and discuss what we want out of the meetings.

> could discuss this coming Sat., if we have a "prelim" meeting.

I would suggest starting with the intro book might be better, but that 
is just me.  I imagine the GOF book would be fine as well.  I guess we 
need a consensus here or in a prelim meeting.

Bill

---

From: Tom Bryan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 22:47:49 +0500

On Saturday 16 February 2002 11:02 pm, [email-masked] wrote:

> Object Oriented Design", written by AlanShalloway and JamesTrott.  
> Apparently it's considered more of an introductory
> GoF book?  Or would you guys just want to jump into the GoF right away?  

I've never seen the other book.  I've read most of the GoF book.  If you're 
currently a software developer doing object-oriented development in Java, 
C++, Python, etc., then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the GoF book.  

The concept of design patterns is presented well at the beginning of the book 
and is fairly straight forward.  The individual patterns aren't that bad.  
Implementing them is usually pretty easy, given the explanations in the text. 
It just takes some thinking to figure out where each pattern fits, how they 
relate to each other, when to use and not use each one, and where they might 
be useful in code you're writing.  By "thinking," I don't mean "figuring it 
out" like computing algorithm timings.  I mean something more like 
"pondering" or "reflecting."  This book is, IMHO, an excellent choice for a 
reading group because it is one where hearing diverse points of view and 
drawing on different people's backgrounds can really add a lot to the book.  

---Tom