Object-Oriented Design for C++

Overview

Advanced C Development Techniques
Developing CORBA Applications in C

C programmers wishing to enhance their OO development skills.

Hands-on case study is developed throughout the week from specification to the early stages of coding.

Analysis models of a system, such as those described by the UML (Unified Modelling Language), provide an elegant conceptual view of a system’s purpose, but little advice on the practicalities of constructing a system. By contrast, implementation technologies, such as C , provide the detail necessary to build but little advice on how to establish an effective architecture for your system. This is a gap you may have encountered yourself: having either an understanding of a notation or of a technology, or even both, which is not sufficient to guarantee a successful design. Design is a process that requires additional concepts and practices to be effective and this course acts as the bridge between object-oriented analysis and implementation knowledge, in many respects picking up where QA’s C programming language courses and analysis and design courses leave off. The course begins by looking at the conceptual model of a system and the modelling elements used to express it. This is followed by an introduction to patterns, which are an essential concept in modern OO development. Patterns for architecture, design and language-level idioms are introduced and applied to the conceptual model. Technology issues such as concurrency and distribution are covered as options later in the course.

This course is based on the standard UML notation and the choice of C as an implementation language

Prerequisites

Delegates must have a solid C background, with at least 6 months hands-on experience following the C for C Programmers or C for non-C Programmers course, or equivalent. Experience of some of the concepts presented on the Advanced C Development Techniques course may also be beneficial. You must also have a thorough understanding of object-oriented concepts, which might be gained from one of the analysis and design courses or from our Object-Oriented Software Development course. Your understanding should include Encapsulation, and how to make best use of the C public, protected and private access specifiers; Inheritance and how it is expressed in C ; Polymorphism and the use of virtual functions in C ; Abstract classes and pure virtual functions; object relationships, such as association and composition; How to use the C const qualifier; How to use existing code libraries, such as the standard C library, in your own project.

Delegates will learn how to

Develop a system architecture given the analysis models and architectural constraints

Take the detail of a class model and elaborate it into a more complete design specification
Implement an object-oriented design in C
Apply patterns to their object models to resolve architectural, design and implementation issues
Use features of C that support the construction of large applications, and the use of frameworks and existing libraries
Apply the appropriate technology to the implementation of design elements

Course Outline

System Development

The development life cycle; Activities and deliverables; Use Cases and scenarios

Static Modelling
Classes and object diagrams; Attributes and operations; Association, aggregation and composition; Parameterised classes; Stereotypes

Dynamic Modelling
Sequence diagrams; Collaboration diagrams; State diagrams

Constraints
Programming by contract; Specifying operation behaviour; Clarifying operation and attribute effects; Constraints between relationships

Patterns
Recognising, reusing and documenting recurring design solutions; The Composite pattern; The Iterator pattern; The Command pattern; Idioms as language level patterns; Object streaming; STL iterators

Architecture

Coupling and cohesion; Package, source code, execution and deployment architectures; Architectural patterns; Layered systems

Functionality and Representation

Mapping attributes and operations to C class members; Logical vs physical const-ness; Argument passing conventions; Class static members; Inline functions; Separation of policy from computation

Delegation

Delegation principles; The Object Adapter pattern; Reducing compile-time dependencies with the Cheshire Cat idiom; The Bridge pattern; The Proxy pattern; Smart pointers

Class Relationships
Inheritance vs delegation; Interfaces; Pure abstract classes; Multiple inheritance; Class Adapter pattern

Object Relationships

Resolving relationship multiplicity and link attributes; Implementation techniques for association, aggregation and composition; The Null Object pattern; Bidirectional relationships

Object Creation and Ownership
Customising the new and delete operators; Object factories; The Factory Method pattern; The Disposal Method pattern; The Singleton pattern; Reference counted smart pointers

Object State
Object life cycle models and state diagrams; Explicit and derived attributes for object state; State transition tables; The Objects for States pattern; The Collections for States pattern

Exceptions
Handling constraint violations at runtime; Catching and throwing exceptions in C ; Writing exception safe code

Events and Notification
Events and event propagation models; The pull model and polling; The push model and callbacks; The Chain of Responsibility pattern; The Observer pattern; Model/View/Controller (MVC); Event queues

Libraries and Frameworks
Reusing code through libraries; The standard C library; Framework types; Framework architecture

Concurrency
Active and passive objects; Sequential, guarded and concurrent operations; Threaded objects; Thread safety

Component Systems
Overview of COM; Overview of CORBA; Interface Definition Languages (IDLs); Stubs and skeletons

Distributed Systems
Principles and consequence of distribution; Distributed object development; Distribution idioms; The Distributed Iterator pattern

Persistence
Object to RDBMS mapping; Object DBMS; Serialisation