Review by Billy Barron, Delphi Consultants

"Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Volume 2: Patterns for Concurrent and Networked Objects" (Wiley Computer Publishing; ISBN 0-471-60695-2) by Douglas Schmidt, Michael Stal, Hans Rohnert, and Frank Buschmann is a set of 17 patterns for concurrent and networked design. I feel bad that I have had this book for months, value it quite a bit, and hadn't gotten around to reviewing. However, if I hadn't delayed, I would not have a good story about this book.

The last major project we were on we had some very difficult threading issues between modules. I had this book sitting on the desk next to me and was gradually reading a little here and a little there. One day we had a major breakthrough in the design. A day or two later over lunch, I read the half-sync, half-async pattern. I walked in the office and showed it to a co-worker. Sure enough that was the pattern we had fleshed out that was the core of our design. Therefore, the patterns in this book are very useful in real applications.

The book is well written. I much prefer the writing here compared to the Design Patterns. Design Patterns literally put me to sleep several times. Definitely not the case here.

While I recommend this book highly, it is not for everyone. The core audience that will find this book useful are the developers of network based servers, which includes the whole telecommunications industry. I consider this book an invaluable addition to my library.