Object Oriented Programming Books

Well in this new entry i would like to share with you a few books that i've read about Object Oriented Programming (OOP).

Object Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications by Grady Booch: This is an excellent book to begin with. Not only illustrates the fundamentals of OOP (in a very clear way through lots of examples, btw), but it tries to teach you how to think in Objects and how to design programs following the OOP principles.
Besides this the author also teaches you an introduction to UML(he states that if you want to go deeper you will have to read an UML book) and there's one chapter that covers how to apply this in your work and how it works (software development lifecycle for example). The las chapter of the book if full with applications (there's a problem to be solved, a series of diagrmas in UML notation, and finally the "solution" in OOP).
The only thing that i've heard against about this book (i did not felt this way when i read it) is that it's a lillte bit dense. Still it's a great book you don't have to speak english as your mother tounge to understand it and it's full of useful information.


Applying UML and Patterns: An introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and the Unified Process by Craig Larman: This one has a newer edition. I've enjoyed this book too! It has (at least for me) a very clear explanation of the UML notation and the Unified Process what i belive is a very useful tool to work with. Craig gives a few examples of the situations where he used it and the consecuences (favorable ones, of course) and introduces a new concept, at least for us, the Design Patterns. I am stopping right here and to talk about another 2 books:


Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John M.Vlissides (All toghether known as "The Gang of Four") and Head First Design Patterns by Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman, Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra. Both excellent books in the subject and they complement each other really well.
The first one it's like a cook-book in wich you have the recipe of all of the 23 patterns.It shows the what, how and why's of every pattern so it's a really good reference book. On the other hand we have a non-traditional book that has a particular way to teach (these "technique" that is used in this books is also used in all the "Head First" books) and i won't tell you how it's written because i'm falling asleep. I agree that it's not for everyone but it worked well on me, it made a really enjoyable and fast reading of the book.
I'll tell you what i did: every time i finish the reading about a design pattern in the Head First book i jumped to the explanation in the Gang Of Four book.


All these four books will give you a strong base to start thinking and solving problems in OOP, but reading will be meaning less if you don't practice, so do it =)!
I'm open to sugestions for new books and opinions and i hope you find in these books a reason to keep learning all those things that you feel passionate about.
This is all for tonight (hopefully i will post more of this in the future), sorry for not posting and extense review of each one. The point of this post is to bring to your attention four excellent books.