Patterns Of Enterprise Application Architecture Review (Last Edit: Oct 22 2008 14:20:45)
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Motivation

I didn’t look at this book for a long time simply because of the word “enterprise.” I felt the word was too overloaded to be useful. I’ve heard too many managers, recruiters, and other programmers use this word to mean too many different things. Fowler defines enterprise application as “the display, manipulation, and storage of large amounts of often complex data and the support or automation of business process with that data.” By that definition every system I’ve ever worked on has been an enterprise application.

Cons

A dense, tough read. I almost wish I was at a whiteboard or kept a notepad while reading.


Pros

Fowler gives a fantastic presentation of how to design software using databases, distributed components, etc. This is given through good narratives and anecdotes of Fowler’s own experiences, and also through the patterns distilled from these. The best thing I can say about this book is I would put it fourth in the list of books-I’d-like-anybody-I’m-working-with-to-have-read, right after to Design Patterns, Refactoring, and Extreme Programming Explained.

Summary

As with most patterns books, not everything in here is an amazing revelation, but the common approach, terminology, and ways of categorizing problems and solutions make it very valuable.

Programmers who utilize design patterns and refactoring, and who work on software systems involving distributed components and/or databases should take a look at this book.
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