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Rating: 
Summary: The engineering context of individual practice
Review: Prof. Braude wrote this book specifically for his students - to clarify and unify a number of concepts. It has three main centers of attention: design patterns, component software, and software engineering (SWEng). This last is Prof. Braude's specialty. He addresses industrial SWEng directly in another book, in far more detail than this book attempts. This is not "SWEng-lite" though. It presents SWEng as the context in which software is designed - the environment in which design patterns are applied. Other design pattern books seem to address design as an isolated event, with no context and no further concerns than design. That, in my opinion, is how other books fail. Design is just a fraction, typically 10% down to 1% of a program's lifetime cost. SWEng addresses the whole of a software project's life. This book exists to place design, in terms of design patterns, in its proper place in a software system's time line. In part, it's a commentary on the "Design Patterns" book by Gamma et al. In part, it's a summary of SWEng process. Other books do each job better. This book unifies the two fields, though, and may be unique in taking on that unification as its main goal. For the general reader, this book's discussion of component software may seem shallow and tangential. Perhaps it works well in Prof. Braude's classroom, but I think it adds one concept too many to an otherwise good book. The component and .NET sections may have value in his classroom, but I think they add little to an otherwise interesting approach to two important topics. I think this book has a place in a complete software engineering library. Maybe not the highest place, or second highest. Still, it will give the knowledgeable reader a uncommon view of individual design as part of the professional software practice.
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