Pattern-Oriented Analysis and Design: Composing Patterns to Design Software Systems

Preface

The most difficult part of building software is not coding; it is the decisions you make early at the design level. Those design decisions live with the system for the rest of its lifetime.

Although this statement might offend many software developers who are strong believers in coding and implementation, in reality it should not. It is more a compliment than an insult! How?

We believe that design is a critical phase of the software development lifecycle. Good design decisions eventually result in a good product, and bad design decisions generally affect the quality of the final product. But the question is, How do we make a good design decision, and how can we assess that such a decision is “good” when we do not have the final product to ...