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Swox
OK Mr. Sunshine!
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Toronto
 
2009-08-15, 02:53

Sorry if this seems obvious, but have you spoken to any published former profs or colleagues? I know that's who I'd be consulting first.

Total aside, but I'm going to be trying to get published for the first time this fall - just a paper though

Do not be oppressed by the forces of ignorance and delusion! But rise up now with resolve and courage! Entranced by ignorance, from beginningless time until now, You have had more than enough time to sleep. So do not slumber any longer, but strive after virtue with body, speech, and mind!
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2009-08-15, 11:14

Quote:
Originally Posted by Swox View Post
Sorry if this seems obvious, but have you spoken to any published former profs or colleagues? I know that's who I'd be consulting first.
Oh yas. Unfortunately, my primary colleague is kind of a publishing machine, and his advice was basically "Just send it in, and they publish it, right?" Yes, well, if it's *you* they do, buddy... I have some other coworkers who are working on a book, and we've been talking as well.

Quote:
Total aside, but I'm going to be trying to get published for the first time this fall - just a paper though
Nice! Getting your first paper out there is kind of exhilarating.
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2009-10-27, 12:45

Welp.

Just signed a contract. Hopefully the book will be out first half 2011.
  quote
709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2009-10-27, 12:53

Congratulations.

I want my copy signed!
  quote
Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2009-10-27, 13:15

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
Welp.

Just signed a contract. Hopefully the book will be out first half 2011.
Yay!

It's amazing how slow the old publishing machine can work sometimes but when you hold your book in your hands I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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Unch
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: United Chavdom of Little Britain
 
2009-10-27, 15:42

Congratulations Kickaha!
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2009-10-27, 15:47

Thanks guys! Went the no-agent route, only because I had an introduction to the editor by a colleague who is well published. And after that it was shockingly quick... hope I didn't miss the 'first born and two limbs' clause in the contract. I'm kind of doing the stunned monkey routine at the moment.
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2009-10-27, 15:58

I already have some ideas for the cover:

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Mac+
9" monochrome
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: 🇦🇺
 
2009-10-27, 15:59

That's great news Kick - congrats.

709 classic
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2009-10-27, 19:31

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh that's disturbing.

  quote
Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2009-10-28, 14:40

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
Welp.

Just signed a contract. Hopefully the book will be out first half 2011.
Spoiler (click to toggle):

OMG!!! A ZILLION CONGRATULATIONS, DR. KICKAHA







Oh, and will it ever be on amazon? Do they even *have* a textbook division on amazon???
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2010-10-31, 16:00

First nearly-full draft to publisher for review.

Now maybe I'll get to have a life again? Naaaaaw...
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billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2010-10-31, 16:52

709 wins post of the year.

Oh, and congrats, Kickaha!

This reminds me I need to move on with my own life as well.... I've got to get out of this fucking lab.
  quote
Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2010-10-31, 16:55

Quote:
Originally Posted by billybobsky View Post
This reminds me I need to move on with my own life as well.... I've got to get out of this fucking lab.
Write a novel!
  quote
psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2010-10-31, 17:01

709 just created the most amazing book cover in the history of ever, I do believe.
  quote
709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2010-10-31, 17:17

Quote:
Originally Posted by billybobsky View Post
709 wins post of the year..
Well, that was last year's post, but I'll take it retroactively. I have the print files all ready to go as soon as Kick's publisher gives me the go ahead.


Congrats again, Kick. Can we hope for an AN exclusive preview?

So it goes.
  quote
billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2010-10-31, 17:37

Shit. I saw 10-27 and ignored the year...
  quote
709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2010-10-31, 17:47

S'ok. I forgot all about it myself and it made me lol.
  quote
Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2010-10-31, 19:01

Even so, you have to admit it's also creepy in how Kick's face is on the side of the head.
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2011-05-13, 22:50

Ok, so first half of 2011?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaaa... *sigh*

Still working on revisions. Turned in draft Oct 31, got revisions back in Jan, started in on earnest after a major work contract ended in early Mar, had a deadline of end of April that shot *right* the hell by, but thank god the publisher is accommodating.

It's getting there though. About 300 pages at the moment. No idea which side of that it's going to end up at, got a lot of crud to chop out of one chapter before I stitch it back together.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!
  quote
Ryan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
 
2011-05-13, 23:37

A text on software design? Our CS department is revamping its curriculum in that area over the next few years, wonder if we’ll end up with your book. Right now it’s Pressman + Gang of Four, but the class that uses GoF isn’t required and is considered *incredibly* hard due to the professor teaching it, so most students don’t learn that book during their four years here.
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2011-05-14, 00:13

Bingo. GoF is too damned high level for beginning programmers to grok, and they end up just cutting and pasting, thereby kind of eliminating the whole &*(%@$ point of patterns.

The title is "Elemental Design Patterns" (EDPs). It's the first collection of tiny little design patterns out of a body of research I did my PhD work on, called SPQR. Essentially what I did was to create a formal calculus for design pattern definition and composition, then start at the foundation of basic OO theory and puzzle out what the 'atomic' patterns had to be.

Well actually I puzzled out what the formal framework for the patterns had to be, kind of like a periodic table, then started filling them in. Those are the EDPs. They're small, easily understandable by even beginning students, and composable into the more familiar design patterns very quickly.

I also establish a graphical notation for working with patterns called PIN (Pattern Instance Notation) that I've had published at one conference and this summer, in the Journal of Visual Language and Computing. (Also a mild possibility it will be made an OMG standard this fall to stand alongside UML.)

So. Take one OO-theory-derived calculus of design, a new pattern graphical notation that is based off of it, an approach for abstracting away implementation details from design concepts, a bundle of EDPs that are defined in the formalisms as non-decomposable and atomic, a methodology for composing patterns together starting with the EDPs and working up to whatever level you like... and then explain it all to a beginner by stripping out all the math, the equations, and the formalisms so that they can learn how to think and reason about design at the same time that they learn how to program.

By the time they get through this book, they should be able to work with the GoF level patterns as living entities, not rote recipes.

That's the book. Sound interesting?
  quote
Ryan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
 
2011-05-14, 00:49

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
Bingo. GoF is too damned high level for beginning programmers to grok, and they end up just cutting and pasting, thereby kind of eliminating the whole &*(%@$ point of patterns.

The title is "Elemental Design Patterns" (EDPs). It's the first collection of tiny little design patterns out of a body of research I did my PhD work on, called SPQR. Essentially what I did was to create a formal calculus for design pattern definition and composition, then start at the foundation of basic OO theory and puzzle out what the 'atomic' patterns had to be.

Well actually I puzzled out what the formal framework for the patterns had to be, kind of like a periodic table, then started filling them in. Those are the EDPs. They're small, easily understandable by even beginning students, and composable into the more familiar design patterns very quickly.

I also establish a graphical notation for working with patterns called PIN (Pattern Instance Notation) that I've had published at one conference and this summer, in the Journal of Visual Language and Computing. (Also a mild possibility it will be made an OMG standard this fall to stand alongside UML.)

So. Take one OO-theory-derived calculus of design, a new pattern graphical notation that is based off of it, an approach for abstracting away implementation details from design concepts, a bundle of EDPs that are defined in the formalisms as non-decomposable and atomic, a methodology for composing patterns together starting with the EDPs and working up to whatever level you like... and then explain it all to a beginner by stripping out all the math, the equations, and the formalisms so that they can learn how to think and reason about design at the same time that they learn how to program.

By the time they get through this book, they should be able to work with the GoF level patterns as living entities, not rote recipes.

That's the book. Sound interesting?
Quite interesting, we have a professor here who would very much be interested in this. He’s the one who taught the class using Gang of Four. I actually felt he used it pretty well, but it wasn’t a traditional class. We met once a week, for 2.5 hours. First 30 minutes was a quiz on the past week’s readings from Effective C++ and Effective Java, second 1.5 hours was a lecture on design patterns, final 30 minutes was time to work on our semester project and ask questions. The project was developing a virtual world, sort of a simulated Google Earth. Half the class implemented it in C++, other half in Java.

Essentially, as we learned the Gang of Four, we realized how we should have designed our project. I actually thought it was fairly effective that way.
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2011-05-14, 01:26

Very nice. Getting a chance to do it wrong is the only way that you learn why the pattern is how to do it right, and that's what most patterns classes are missing. They try and teach students, who usually have almost no experience at design, "Here's how to do it", but without the background to appreciate why it's the right way, there's no comprehension to speak of. Students just end up faithfully copying the pattern without thinking about it.

The problem is, something like the GoF level of pattern is usually quite a bit beyond the experience scope of the students they're teaching to. By giving students much smaller patterns in the EDPs, it lets them see solutions to problems they're going to run into from day 1. They learn the wrong way, and the right way, at the same time, from the ground up.

And, by showing them how to think about design as building blocks, and giving them the tools to decompose and recompose design and implementation side by side, they can advance their own learning incrementally as needed.

Basically it's not teaching them design, it's teaching them how to think about, and learn about, design.

I think that's a much more powerful tool, in the end.

The fun thing is, this came out of research to teach a computer how to detect design patterns from source code, by looking for small building blocks and putting them together in well-formed ways. Once I had that licked, I realized that I could write it up and teach people how to do something similar.
  quote
Ryan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
 
2011-05-14, 01:29

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
Very nice. Getting a chance to do it wrong is the only way that you learn why the pattern is how to do it right, and that's what most patterns classes are missing. They try and teach students, who usually have almost no experience at design, "Here's how to do it", but without the background to appreciate why it's the right way, there's no comprehension to speak of. Students just end up faithfully copying the pattern without thinking about it.

The problem is, something like the GoF level of pattern is usually quite a bit beyond the experience scope of the students they're teaching to. By giving students much smaller patterns in the EDPs, it lets them see solutions to problems they're going to run into from day 1. They learn the wrong way, and the right way, at the same time, from the ground up.

And, by showing them how to think about design as building blocks, and giving them the tools to decompose and recompose design and implementation side by side, they can advance their own learning incrementally as needed.

Basically it's not teaching them design, it's teaching them how to think about, and learn about, design.

I think that's a much more powerful tool, in the end.

The fun thing is, this came out of research to teach a computer how to detect design patterns from source code, by looking for small building blocks and putting them together in well-formed ways. Once I had that licked, I realized that I could write it up and teach people how to do something similar.
Keep us updated! I’m keen to take a look once it’s published.
  quote
GSpotter
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: A small town near Wolfsburg, Germany
 
2011-05-14, 02:44

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robo View Post
...and it will give them excerpt rights, and the film/television/drama rights...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
(Especially since he also mentioned a video series?!? WTF??)
When reading this, I somehow envisioned a movie poster "The return of the Anti Patterns - part one of the death march trilogy", directed by Michael Bay" ...
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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2011-05-14, 07:13

Kick -

Would it be available for individual purchases, on Amazon or something like that? If so, I'd love it if you could post when it's available. I may want to buy it myself.
  quote
adamb
Formerly “adambrennan”
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Northern Ireland
 
2011-05-14, 10:06

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
Kick -

Would it be available for individual purchases, on Amazon or something like that? If so, I'd love it if you could post when it's available. I may want to buy it myself.
Same here. My masters dissertation was on design patterns so I'm sure I would find it an interesting read.

I thought I had posted in this thread already but it appears not. Good luck with it. You definitely have found a gap in the market there which for the good of us all needs to be filled.
  quote
Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2011-05-14, 12:40

Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana View Post
Kick -

Would it be available for individual purchases, on Amazon or something like that? If so, I'd love it if you could post when it's available. I may want to buy it myself.
Yup, it'll be coming out from Addison-Wesley Professional Publishing, alongside ye olde Gang of Four Design Patterns book.

Of course, now books are dead, so my timing is *awesome*...

adamb: What was your dissertation on? Always curious to find out what people are up to.
  quote
adamb
Formerly “adambrennan”
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Northern Ireland
 
2011-05-15, 07:39

It was an experiment on the performance implication of using some common GoF patterns. Nothing ground-breaking or overly surprising but somewhat interesting to do.

The thing is, it wasn't until the final year of my course that patterns were introduced in any kind of formal manner, so I think that's the really exciting thing for me about your book. Undoubtedly a lot of students would do things differently with early exposure to patterns. In my experience of teaching people fundamentals of programming it's all about explaining the 'why', and that seems to be missing in a lot of cases. Your notation too sounds very interesting, and with teaching the concepts of design rather than design itself I don't see how this can't work out well for you.
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