3

• creational patterns
• structural patterns
• behavioral patterns

1. How would you explain the letter/envelope idiom?
2. Characterize the notion of polymorphism. Give some examples.
3. What is a canonical class? Characterize its ingredients and give an example.
4. Give a brief description of the handle/body idiom, virtual self-reference, and dynamic role switching.
5. What kinds of patterns can you distinguish? Why do you consider patterns to be of relevance?
6. Give a detailed description of the Factory pattern and also of the Observer pattern.
7. Describe the Reactor pattern. Why is it useful?
8. Give an example of a system based on event-driven computation.

For an introduction to Java, there is ample choice. An excellent online tutorial can be found on java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial . As textbooks on C++ I recommend  [Lippman91], and for the more advanced reader  [Stroustrup98]. For an extensive introduction to STL, read  [STL].  [Coplien92] is the original introduction to idioms in C++. The by now classical book for patterns is  [GOF94]. Well worth reading are the many articles in the POPL proceedings,  [POPL1],  [POPL2] and  [POPL3].