My Country, My Right to Serve: Experiences of Gay Men and Women in the Military, World War II to the Present

Customer Reviews:

A work of military oral history that spans generations.......2005-06-23

"My Country, My Right to Serve: Experiences of Gay Men and Women in the Military, World War II to the Present" is compiled and with a preface by Mary Ann Humphrey. Humphrey, a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve who was forced to resign her commission for being gay, explains the origin of this book in her preface. The book is a collection of oral histories of lesbian and gay male veterans whose service spans from World War II to the final years of the Cold War era. The veterans in this book are a diverse group: women and men; Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps; active duty, National Guard, and Reserve; officer and enlisted; and of various ethnic backgrounds. They represent a wide range of military jobs: WW2 infantryman, Navy electronics officer, Army court reporter in Vietnam, combat medic, drill sergeant, pilot, recruiter, and more. Besides Humphrey, a total of 42 veterans are featured; some use pseudonyms.

Each featured veteran tells his or her story in the first person. This is a fascinating collection of voices. Some recurring themes include gay "networking" within the military and the impact of the AIDS crisis. But I found the most striking recurring theme to be the surveillance, harrassment, intimidation, coercion, and even imprisonment of gay servicemembers. Some of these stories are truly disturbing. Many of the veterans talk about the devastating psychological consequences of such experiences. On the other hand, a number of the vets talk about the positive aspects of their service.

For those with some knowledge of the perennially controversial "gays-in-the-military" issue, some of the featured veterans may be familiar: Vernon "Copy" Berg, Leonard Matlovich, Joseph Steffan, Perry Watkins, etc. There are some really noteworthy stories contained in this book. Johnnie Phelps recalls an extraordinary encounter with General Eisenhower when she served as a WAC motor sergeant during WW2. Air Force veteran Ruth Hughes recalls her experience as an African-American woman in uniform in the segregated South. Miriam Ben-Shalom recalls a career that includes service in both the Israeli Army and the U.S. Army. An equally remarkable career is that of J.W. "Skip" Godsey, a combat veteran of Vietnam who served in both the Navy and the Army. One veteran known as "Janice" recalls her career as an Army nurse, which culminated in her retirement as a full colonel.

This book is a fascinating and valuable contribution to American military history. Some of the achievements of these men and women are truly remarkable. Their voices are moving and thought-provoking. With a 1990 copyright date, however, the book is clearly in need of a sequel.

A Country for Old Men and My Canadian Uncle (Poetry Pleiade)

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A Country for Old Men and My Canadian Uncle (Poetry Pleiade)
Iain Crichton Smith
Manufacturer: Carcanet Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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In the Country of Men: My Travels
Jan L. Waldron
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

While the harrowing journey into womanhood has been a topic of such thoughtful and hugely popular books as Reviving Ophelia, Schoolgirls, and Girlfriends, the equally harrowing journey into manhood has not received much attention. In the Country of Men, Jan Waldron's second beautiful memoir, is a paean to boyhood and an exposé of the myths of manhood.

This book grew out of a piece Waldron wrote for The New York Times Magazine about her teenage sons and their journeys into manhood. It was received with such enthusiasm, and she had so much more to say about the subject, that she decided to expand the piece into a full-length book that would include her father, her brother, her lovers, and her sons.

Waldron does not write from a discipline or a movement. She writes at eye-level, from across the kitchen table. In the same way that Anne Roiphe's highly acclaimed memoir Fruitful (a National Book Award finalist), was also an exploration of modern motherhood, In the Country of Men combines beautiful writing and deeply felt personal experiences to make readers think long and hard about how we are raising our sons.

In the Country of Men begins with memories of Jan's father, a boy who never really grew up, and her brother, a boy who had to grow up too fast. She takes readers through the high drama of her first kiss, and the deep disappointment of her relationship with the father of her sons, who left the family when their two sons were four and five. She has finally found a happy, lasting relationship with a man. And it is with her sons that she has found hope and a vision for the future.

The Men in My Country: Sb (Sightline Books)

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Different than I expected
Enthralling and heartwrenching
Savor every word
An Amazing Story Made Up Of Perfect Sentences

The Men in My Country: Sb (Sightline Books)
Marilyn Abildskov
Manufacturer: University Of Iowa Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir

ASIN: 0877459045

Book Description

In the early 1990s, at the watershed age of thirty, Marilyn Abildskov decided she needed to start over. She accepted an offer to move from Utah to Matsumoto, Japan, to teach English to junior high school students. "All I knew is that I had to get away and when I stared at my name on the Japanese contract, the squiggles of katakana, my name typed in English sturdily beneath, I liked how it looked. As if it—as if I—were translated, transformed, emerging now as someone new."

The Men in My Country is the story of an American woman living and loving in Japan. Satisfied at first to observe her exotic surroundings, the woman falls in love with the place, with the light, with the curve of a river, with the smell of bonfires during obon, with blue and white porcelain dishes, with pencil boxes, and with small origami birds. Later, struggling for a deeper connection—"I wanted the country under my skin"— Abildskov meets the three men who will be part of her transformation and the one man with whom she will fall deeply in love.

A travel memoir offering an artful depiction of a very real place, The Men in My Country also covers the terrain of a complex emotional journey, tracing a geography of the heart, showing how we move to be moved, how in losing ourselves in a foreign place we can become dangerously—and gloriously—undone.

Customer Reviews:

Different than I expected.......2006-01-23

I picked this up because I thought it was about teaching in Japan. Having taught abroad (China and Egypt), and having taught many Japanese students in the US, I thought it was a travel book about the teaching experience.

It turned out to be something very different. It is common knowledge among expat teachers, but unspoken to employers, that some US men are there to meet women, who "unlike American women, know how to treat a guy". As I got beyond the introductory pages about sensing and "watching" Japan, I wondered if this book was about the reverse, liberated American women shattering a taboo and having sexual exploits in a foreign land.

Further into the book, there is more insight. This is a highly sensitive person, looking for a place, affirmation, love, or maybe permanance in a world that hasn't offered it to her. Needs transcend her awareness of the wake she leaves behind. Despite her deep love (or is it need) for one man, she entertains two others. The man she loves wants her in some way, but is emotionally unavailable. Of the other two, one is married, and the other, as a worker in a noodle factory is not a serious suitor. I would expect that both have emotional scars from their relationship with the author. None of the three men speaks English well enough to have a normal, let alone nuanced, conversation with her.

The book chronicles, after 7 years retrospect, her memories of the encounters, from her observation, along with a backdrop of the intrigue of a foreign adventure.

I would recommend this to anyone going through a romantic breakup. Like a conversation with a fellow sufferer, it could offer a balm. The pain comes through the detail of obsession for the lost. The writing is very good, and I like the remembered conversations italicized and not quoted, since there is no way they can be exact. For those looking for a travel adventure, or insight into teaching English, this is not the book.

The cover is great. The oragami figures in subtle colors clearly evoke Japan.

Enthralling and heartwrenching.......2005-08-03

Abildskov perfectly portrays the heartbreak of loving more than one can be loved. In liquid prose, she both startles and cajols, rendering a painfully honest tale of heartbreak. I read this beautiful book in a single sitting.

Savor every word.......2004-10-25

This is a lovely work about a women's journey to find what love might mean- and no way is it trite. Ms. Abildskov is placed in a foreign country with new stimulations, finding for herself that love can show itself in a variety of forms and yet hasn't she maybe felt love before without recognizing its subtle ways? I hated to have this story end. I held myself back reading- trying to let each moment penetrate my feelings as they might have Ms. Abildskov. Her descriptions are as beautiful as they are heavy, letting me visualize and feel the weight of her emotions.
A lyrical non-fiction memoir that left me feeling like I had been granted a gentle good-bye:
"Are you sorry to go? I ask
Kind of, one woman says
In a way chimes the other. But it's time, you know what I mean? You can't stay forever. I mean this isn't real life." (page 115)
Stay inside the real life Ms. Abildskov recreates and savor the moments. I for one was very sorry to go.

An Amazing Story Made Up Of Perfect Sentences.......2004-09-30

I could NOT put this book down. Ms. Abildskov has created a story of such difficult beauty and courage, such clear and striking insight, such sweetness and humor and fury, every page took my breath away. A journey, from the moment I opened the book to the wee hours of the morning. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

My Consulate In Samoa: A Record Of Four Years Sojourn In The Navigators Islands, With Personal Experiences Of King Malietoa Laupepa, His Country And His Men

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My Consulate In Samoa: A Record Of Four Years Sojourn In The Navigators Islands, With Personal Experiences Of King Malietoa Laupepa, His Country And His Men
William B. Churchward
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1430495758

Book Description

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

My consulate in Samoa: a record of four yearsÂ’ sojourn in the Navigators Islands, with personal experiences of King Malietoa Laupepa, his country and his men

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My consulate in Samoa: a record of four yearsÂ’ sojourn in the Navigators Islands, with personal experiences of King Malietoa Laupepa, his country and his men
William Brown (1844-1920) Churchward
Manufacturer: Folkestone, Dawsons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000W008MS

My Country, My Right To Serve Experiences of Gay Men and Women in the Military, World War II to the Present

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My Country, My Right To Serve Experiences of Gay Men and Women in the Military, World War II to the Present
Mary Ann Humphrey
Manufacturer: Harper Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Civil Rights | Nonfiction | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000J0R4GO

Why are my country-men such foes to verse?: Untersuchungen zur schottischen Dichtung des fruhen 18. Jahrhunderts in ihrem Verhaltnis zum englischen Klassizismus (Sprache und Literatur)

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Why are my country-men such foes to verse?: Untersuchungen zur schottischen Dichtung des fruhen 18. Jahrhunderts in ihrem Verhaltnis zum englischen Klassizismus (Sprache und Literatur)
Johann Assbeck
Manufacturer: P. Lang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 3820488022

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Men in My Country
Marilyn Abildskov
Manufacturer: UNIV OF IA PRESS+
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N75WF8

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My Country, My Right to Serve : Experiences of Gay Men and Women in the Military, World War II to the Present
Mary Ann Humprhey
Manufacturer: Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Civil Rights | Nonfiction | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000OF7KEU

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it makes you wish tiger had players he could duel with.

Great read!

Best I've Ever Read on Golf

A rambling piece ...

The best kind of golf book

Duel in the Sun: Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus in the Battle of Turnberry
Michael Corcoran
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Eternal Summer: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Hogan in 1960, Golf's Golden Year

The Masters: Golf, Money, and Power in Augusta, Georgia

The Slam: Bobby Jones and the Price of Glory

Golf's Golden Age: Bobby Jones and the Legendary Players of the 10, 20's and 30's

Royal and Ancient: Blood, Sweat, and Fear at the British Open

ASIN: 0743203100

Book Description

In the rest of the world, they call it the Open Championship. Americans call it the British Open, but if any tournament is considered the battle for the world championship of golf, it is the one held annually on the great links courses of Scotland and England, the birthplace of the game.

By the time the 1977 Open came to Turnberry on Scotland's west coast, Jack Nicklaus had established himself as the greatest champion the golf world has ever known, well on his way to the record that Tiger Woods would spend his childhood dreaming of and pointing toward. The sight of Nicklaus on the leaderboard was enough to make strong golfers shake. Everyone knew that Nicklaus was the man to beat in every major championship he entered.

At the same time, Tom Watson had become the latest golfer to be heralded as the "Next Nicklaus." Watson had overcome his reputation for choking in big tournaments and was beginning to be viewed by his peers as the top player of his generation. He had won two majors, but there were still questions about his ability to stand up under the fiercest pressure.

There are few moments in sports when it is clear to one and all that a torch has been passed. The 1977 Open Championship at Turnberry was one such event. The weather was uncharacteristically warm, British golf fans bared their pink skin to the unfamiliar sun, and the course played hard and fast. Nicklaus and Watson were tied after the first two rounds. Nicklaus shot a blistering 65-66 over the last two days to post a 72-hole score that set a tournament record; but Watson, paired with Nicklaus over those fateful 36 holes, looked Jack in the eye and shot 65-65 to win by a stroke. And the Next Nicklaus had been found at last, even as the original kept winning major tournaments -- but the air of invincibility was gone forever.

Michael Corcoran takes the drama of this rare moment in golf history and brings it to vivid life. He draws on his interviews with competitors, caddies, commentators, and spectators to tell the magnificent story of this epic duel in all the rich detail any fan of golfing drama could ask for. Duel in the Sun is an unforgettable tale of the rise of a new hero and the grace of an older champion welcoming him to the summit of the game.

Customer Reviews:

it makes you wish tiger had players he could duel with........2003-02-28

I am a 31 year old former college golfer. I am a history buff of all sports but I really didn't know my golf history as well as i should. This book really helped me. The book details Palmer, Player, Trevino, Nicklaus, Watson and a host of others. You also learn the detailed history of the British Open or as they call it "The Open" The detail of how the British cadies talk is alone worthy as a reason to read this. If you are a golf fan this is a 5 star book if you are not a golf fan I would not recommend it. Although I wouldn't want to dress like they did in the 1970's ; this book made you wish that you did grow up then.

Great read!.......2002-07-31

Even the most casual sports fan will love this book. Like Laura Hillenbrand did in Sea Biscuit, Corcoran breathes life into an epic moment in sports history, the duel between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson in the 1977 British Open. The writing makes you feel like you're right there during the twists and turns of the tournament, getting to peek inside the heads of the athletes during the most pressure-filled moments. And the story is terrific... two golfers at the top of their game, battling a course that none of their competitors could handle. This book was really top-notch.

Best I've Ever Read on Golf.......2002-07-27

The storytelling and the quality of writing in this book are excellent. You won't want it to end.

A rambling piece ..........2002-07-26

This book is very poorly written and organized. It is a rambling piece that covers a number of subjects other than the "Duel in the Sun" in a very disorganized manner. The commentary etc. of the actual "Duel in the Sun" comes along after about 2/3 of the book, and presents virtually nothing insightful.

The best kind of golf book.......2002-06-09

This is the best golf book I've read in several years. The author makes exciting an event which took place more than a quarter-century ago, and that's no easy chore. The minor characters are just as interesting and entertaining as Nicklaus and Watson. Corcoran weaves together geography, history, psychology and more as he tells the story of the greatest mano a mano golf showdown ever. Corcoran does an excellent job of building drama and tension page by page, until finally a winner is revealed. I couldn't put it down! In fact, I read it twice in two days. Buy this book for yourself or for the golf nut you know. You won't be disappointed.

Book Description

What do we measure and why? Peter Hodges sets out in approachable language and with clear illustrations, the answers to this question. New entrants to the video industry, as well as those already established, will find this a uniquely readable guide to the basics of a complex subject.

The essence of 'measurement' is to make sure that all the parts fit. In video this means making sure the picture fits the system, or conversely, the system can handle the picture.

The second edition brings this text into the digital age, while recognising that an understanding of analogue video is still essential. New sections include digital video, digital measurement techniques, LCD displays, colour and compression.

Peter Hodges FBIPP, FRPS, IEng, has worked for many years in the television, film and photographic industries. He promotes the concept of teaching video engineering from its
visual base, a technique of particular value to the less technically minded. He worked for many years at BBC Pebble Mill in engineering, lighting, and special effects, and is the author of The Video Camera Operator's Handbook, also published by Focal Press.

A jargon-free introduction to the subject, suitable for the non technically-minded
Highly illustrated to aid understanding
Now covers digital technology

Customer Reviews:

Depth lacking clarity.......2002-04-14

An interesting excursion into television theory, with practical explanations on the reading and interpreting of waveforms, vectorscopes, and the like, apparently written for non engineers (like me). However, this book is handicapped by inconsistent sentence structure, puzzling and sometimes incoherent explanations, strange jumps in logical thought, and (for American readers) the unusual way some English writers tend to express themselves in print. Especially engineers. This promising book would be worth its... price if it had been edited for clarity and grammer. Unfortunately, although its seems like there is a lot of useful and practical information in this book, solving the logical and gramatical puzzles to dig it out takes too much effort.

Wrote only for Engineers and Technicias in TV........2000-06-15

A Job in TV systems needs knowledge about mesuaring the quality of the signal. Technical Quality Control(TQC) staff need books like this.

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Nuclear Culture: Living and Working in the World's Largest Atomic Complex
Paul Loeb
Manufacturer: Library Company of Philadelphia
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Nuclear | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0865710880

Book Description

In traditional legends, magic has always been a force that granted great power, but which carried risk in its use. For those who appreciate this uncertainty and desire to let magic be something mystical and untamable, something more than just an entry on the 'spells per day' table, Natural 20 Press presents Wild Spellcraft. Wild Spellcraft provides game masters with a toolkit for including the unpredictable forces of magic in their game with whatever depth and complexity they want. Ranging from rules for spells gone awry to prestige classes for those who try to master magic in its rawest, most chaotic form, Wild Spellcraft is designed to be modular, to fit into your game in individualpieces or in its entirety.

Amazon.com

Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns looks at how patterns occur on three different levels--in software architecture, in everyday design, and in idioms (which describe how a particular design pattern is implemented in a programming language like C++). This synthetic approach is a little theoretical at times, but the authors also present over a dozen patterns and provide real-world examples wherever possible.

For architectural patterns, the authors look at the Layers pattern, used in operating systems such as Windows NT and virtual machines. They also consider Pipes and Filters, which process streams of data. (This pattern, the authors point out, is a lynchpin of Unix.) Their Blackboard pattern shows how a complex problem, such as image or speech recognition can be broken up into smaller, specialized subsystems that work together to solve a problem. (For recognizing words from a raw waveform input, a Blackboard approach might have separate processes to find phonemes, then words, then sentences.)

This book also looks at today's distributed systems in considering the Broker pattern, which is used on the Internet and in Microsoft's OLE technology. This section also presents several powerful patterns for building effective graphical user interfaces, such as Model-View-Controller.

The authors define several well-known design patterns, such as the Proxy and Command patterns, and also basic, far-reaching patterns, such as Whole-Part and Master-Slave, which are widely used throughout computing. Their survey ends with a discussion on the way objects can communicate (using such patterns as Forwarder-Receiver, Client-Dispatcher-Server, and Publisher-Subscriber), which many developers will recognize as familiar patterns, but are codified here as "official" patterns. The book then discusses some idioms in C++ and a more far-reaching role for patterns in software design and architecture. By fitting patterns into traditional software engineering practices, the authors of Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture successfully argue that the role for patterns will only continue to diversify and enrich tomorrow's software engineering tools and methodologies. --Richard Dragan

Book Description

Pattern - Oriented Software Architecture A System of Patterns Frank Buschmann, Regine Meunier, Hans Rohnert, Peter Sommerlad, Michael Stal of Siemens AG, Germany Pattern-oriented software architecture is a new approach to software development. This book represents the progression and evolution of the pattern approach into a system of patterns capable of describing and documenting large-scale applications. A pattern system provides, on one level, a pool of proven solutions to many recurring design problems. On another it shows how to combine individual patterns into heterogeneous structures and as such it can be used to facilitate a constructive development of software systems. Uniquely, the patterns that are presented in this book span several levels of abstraction, from high-level architectural patterns and medium-level design patterns to low-level idioms. The intention of, and motivation for, this book is to support both novices and experts in software development. Novices will gain from the experience inherent in pattern descriptions and experts will hopefully make use of, add to, extend and modify patterns to tailor them to their own needs. None of the pattern descriptions are cast in stone and, just as they are borne from experience, it is expected that further use will feed in and refine individual patterns and produce an evolving system of patterns. Visit our Web Page http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Customer Reviews:

Amazing book.......2006-09-06

This book uses an easy way to explain system patterns. I think every software developer has to read this book; it's a nice reference to help software architects doing a well-done job. Another great reference that you may have in your list of references is the classical book "Design Pattern", also at Amazon.com.

#2 best book about patterns ? yes........2005-11-20

A lot of the reviewers have said that this is the #2 best book about patterns : just trust them. I have bought it with the hope to learn more about patterns, finally it has given me a larger point of view about the subject and has improved a lot my creativity during software designing processes.

If your new to patterns just read the GoF, then buy this one. I think you will then have a nice knowledge about the subject.

The second best pattern book.......2005-10-22

Second best isn't bad when the #1 book changed forever the way software architecture is talked about. GoF is not only well-written, but it covers all the basic, most-used patterns. Everybody thereafter is going to have to either re-hash GoF, criticize it, or come up with new patterns which are not as fundamental.

This book is full of new patterns, and fortunately they are good ones: Command, Broker, Layers and worth the price of the book in itself Presentation-Abstraction-Controller.

PAC can be seen as a generalization and extension of Model/View/Controller. The Abstraction is the domain-specific part of the architecture, effectively the Model. The Presentation exposes the Model in some interesting way, either as a user-interface in which case it is a View, or as an API, in which case the Presentation becomes a new Abstraction used by the next level up. The Controller is left with the job of coordinating the Presentation and the Model. The key to the pattern is that PAC agents can be built up into layers with the Presentation API of each lower agent creating a higher abstraction for the next level. Thus PAC becomes MVC for all or your architecture, not just the UI.

The book goes into this at length and adds useful discussion of MVC. Highly recommended.

Not concrete enough.......2005-07-07

First of all, you need to understand the patterns in the gang of four book before you attempt to read this one. They talk about them all over the place without explaining them. That's a warning, it didn't affect my review.

The major thing I don't like about this book is the abstractness with which they talk. They give you a high level description of a pattern and leave you with that fogginess.

I think the examples were poorly chosen. I would have prefered to have examples that are only as complicated as they needed to be. Unfortunately the book uses examples like, "We're going to make a voice recognition application" or "We're going to make an OS that can run applications that were built on Unix or WinNT or Linux". I think the intent was to have some real-world-I've-been-working-for-six-years examples... it would have been smarter to put the real world examples in a separate chapter and keep the design pattern explanations simple.

Also, I hate the diagrams. They should have just copied the diagrams in the GoF book! Instead they chose these diagrams that give less info and IMO are downright ambiguous in some situations. Another thing the GoF book does is have 2 separate diagrams, one that's a (simple) real world example and another that's a diagram of the actual pattern. This book only has the diagram of the actual pattern.

I disagree with those that say this book is better than the GoF book. I think what they like is the material covered. Material aside, the GoF book presents the information in a much clearer way. That's why I prefer the GoF book over this one.

Clear and wide-ranging.......2004-06-25

This is an unusual book in the pattern genre. It presents a number of patterns, categorized by archtiectural level. That's just the first part of the book, though. The third of the book is about the process of using, relating, collecting, and distributing patterns.

Only chapter 2 really addresses patterns for the strategic, architectural level of a software system. It does a very adequate job, using a variety of notations, examples, and analysis steps. This book is from 1996, so time has changed our view of some patterns. "Reflection," for example, has become pervasive in applications based on plugins and software components. It is also a fundamental API in the major langauges (Java and C#) released since this book was published - perhaps reflection should be downgraded to an "idiom". That's just nitpicking, though, since reflection is even more important now than when the book was written.

For contrast, the authors present additional design patterns (including some from Gamma's book) for use at tactical design levels. They also discuss idioms patterns that typically involve just a few lines of code within on function. The contrast between the three different levels of implementation and design gives a useful discussion. The authors also present a weak chapter on "systems" or "langauges" of patterns The discussion is OK as far as it goes. The weakness is in what it omits. After reading this brief chapter, the programmer has very little practical information about choosing patterns from some library for some task. The poor programmer has no information at all about how to link patterns together, and that's a real stumbling block for beginning pattern users.

The final section of the book is really sociology. It's about the pattern community, what that community is for, and how to be a working member. I find the discussion un-helpful, but I expect opinions to differ.

Even today, this is a good second book (after Gamma's 'Design Patterns') on patterns and pattern usage. It lack the depth and precision of Gamma's book, and tends to add words without adding meaning. On the positive side, it's broader than Gamma's, and addresses a wider range of implementation levels.

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