Voss intends to give an introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP) from a programming languages point of view. The first three chapters provide an understanding of the basic OOP concepts: object-oriented modeling and decomposition, polymorphism, inheritance, classification, and dynamic binding. In these chapters C++ is introduced, and implementation examples of each of the aforementioned object-oriented concepts are provided in that language.

Chapters 4 and 5 serve as an introduction to Smalltalk/V and its rich class library. The following chapter provides examples of using various graphics libraries (BGI, Flash Graphics, and Microsoft Windows) that are implemented using object-oriented concepts. Chapters 7 and 8 look at the differences between object-based and object-oriented programming, and discuss how Object-Oriented Turbo Pascal, C++, Smalltalk, and Actor support various object-oriented concepts.

Chapter 9 introduces the concept of an application framework. The remaining five chapters discuss how application frameworks are implemented in Turbo Vision, C++ Views, and ObjectWindows, concentrating on how the application communicates with its user interface and how such an interface should be defined using object-oriented techniques.

This book could be used as a textbook, but it appears to be more suitable as both a tutorial in object-oriented programming and a survey of the major object-oriented languages and applications. Although this work provides a good introduction to most concepts and languages, it glosses over many subjects too quickly, despite its length. It provides many excellent implementation examples in a variety of languages, however.

The author recommends this book for intermediate and advanced programmers who have a background in C or Pascal. I would concur, with one warning: C++ will be difficult to master without knowing C first. I also recommend that the reader complement this implementation-based text with a book on object-oriented analysis and design (preferably reading the latter first), in order to fully master the nuances of the object-oriented paradigm.