Fowler's "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" still relevant? [closed]

Asked 28/3, 2009 at 5:5 Answered 9/11, 2012 at 15:53

Solved java jakarta-ee architecture poeaa

I'm thinking of buying Martin Fowler's "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture".

From what I can see it seems like a great book, an architectural book with bias towards enterprise Java -- just what I need.

However, in computer years, it is quite old. 2003 was a long time ago, and things have moved on quite a bit since that time.

So I'm wondering if anyone can tell me: is this book still relevant, and worth the read?

Kwei answered 28/3, 2009 at 5:5 Comment(6)

People still tend to cite GoF. – Freeborn 28/3, 2009 at 12:11

A programming language book from 2003 would be outdated. But PEAA is not about a programming language, it is about object-oriented design. Unless you've moved onto the next big thing (such as functional programming, or model programming with M) this book is every bit as relevant today as it was the day it was released. – Lemay 10/3, 2010 at 8:5

How is functional programming the Next Big Thing? It dates back to the 50's with LISP (1958), and even to the thirties if considering Lambda Calculus, but let's not nitpick. Yes, it's still alive and kicking. But the Next Big Thing... then alphabet is the next big thing :D – Deva 5/9, 2011 at 15:58

Note that the book was published in November 2002, not in 2003. However, it is very relevant - it's about principles and ideas, not about the code. The proof of concept code inside is rather deprecated, but if you know C# or Java you can easily update these code snippets. – Glasser 10/10, 2011 at 10:31

@gWiz "How is functional programming the Next Big Thing?" - it is the next big thing because it is becoming more widely accepted. "Next thing" is not a matter of chronology. It is a matter of ascendancy (as observed from the current time.) It doesn't matter if a paradigm, regardless of virtuous, is old or new. What matters is its ubiquituousness. Old, but practically unknown by most, and now becoming widely used? Next thing it is then. – Holeandcorner 3/8, 2013 at 16:33

I mean the guy talks about building your own ORM, who does this these days? Or the part about how immature NoSQL is ... You be the judge. – Concoct 11/6, 2020 at 21:34

Yes, it is still very relevant and an excellent resource.

Coeternity answered 28/3, 2009 at 5:8 Comment(4)

... and not only for java developers. it's indeed a great read and you don't need any special java knowledge to understand, what he is writing about. – Ferro 27/3, 2012 at 10:21

Still true in 2015? – Craps 15/9, 2015 at 12:45

@Craps Yes, still relevant. – Droit 1/12, 2015 at 11:33

Still true in 2020? – Concoct 11/6, 2020 at 21:35

This book, and Eric Evans book about Domain-Driven Design, are my books of the year - every year ;) ...

Upgrade answered 1/4, 2009 at 14:15 Comment(0)

It's very relevant. I frequently refer other developers to particular patterns from that book, as links to his site (http://www.martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/), such as Data Transfer Object and Service Layer.

The latter is one I thought I had "invented" until I saw that Fowler had already written about it.

Stormy answered 28/3, 2009 at 20:52 Comment(1)

One cannot invent patterns, only discover them ;) – Slouch 24/4, 2014 at 21:32

Given that the answers to this question are now three years old, I felt it important to restate the relevance of Martin Fowler's patterns.

The GOF design patterns book was first published in 1994, and many of its patterns are still considered relevant. We may have come to a deeper understanding of them and produced subtle variants, but they are there as the foundation of any good OO design.

Modern languages increasingly implement some of the patterns behind the scenes so that the developer in theory doesn't have to know about them (an example is the Iterator pattern through the yield statement in C#). But, the developer is a better one for knowing them.

Moving on the Martin's book - this absolutely is still relevant. Its true that many libraries now support these patterns in the background, once again abstracting them away from the developer, but again they are at the core of enterprise application software development.

They solve problems that occurr again and again, regardless of language, system, or platform.

Parsaye answered 9/11, 2012 at 15:53 Comment(0)

It's currently the textbook used at my university's Principles of Information Systems Design course.

Heptarchy answered 28/3, 2009 at 20:56 Comment(0)

I disagree with the "bias towards Java" statement. Patterns, by their nature, are language-agnostic. They're defined as solutions to common problems. The copy of Fowler's book has examples in both Java and C#, so I can't see where the "bias" comes in. They're the most common object-oriented languages, and he's talking about object-oriented solutions to enterprise problems.

The GoF book has examples in Smalltalk and C++. Why are they so "biased" against Java and C#? Hint: the languages didn't exist when that book was written, but the patterns are as relevant as ever.

Guimond answered 28/3, 2009 at 15:17 Comment(3)

Well, I haven't read the book, so I don't really know... I didn't mean bias in a bad way. It probably would have been more correct to say "the common object-oriented languages used in the enterprise", but I'm a Java guy -- when I think "object-oriented language used in the enterprise" I think Java. – Kwei 28/3, 2009 at 22:31

Agreed, but other people reading your comment might think you had read it and shy away because they aren't Java folk. I wanted to clarify. – Guimond 29/3, 2009 at 14:15

That's inherently not true. All languages you states were imperative languages. You need functional patterns in functional languages, imperative patterns in imperative languages etc. Think about it, patterns that rely on mutation won't work in a pure functional language. Probably no patterns we usually use would work with prolog or Erlang. Just saying, to a reasonable extent - it matters. – Haggle 6/11, 2014 at 21:33

Absolutely!

The book is a classic. I've just been re-reading it to help with some work on event-driven accounting systems.

Fowler has been revisiting some of the patterns since and you can see his works in progress.

Bascom answered 25/8, 2009 at 6:40 Comment(2)

The link is broken. – Cursor 21/7, 2017 at 23:56

fixed link to new page containing the pattern articles – Bascom 22/7, 2017 at 12:40

Very relevant, and certainly not chained to one language. Witness the upcoming Rails move to Merb, in a very real sense a move from one pattern in POEAA (ActiveRecord) to another (DataMapper).

Many other concepts, from ORM strategies to session management, are both relevant and language-agnostic. I'm still floored when I read this how vast Fowler's influence is. He didn't invent all of the concepts here, but he certainly codified and put names to these ideas in such an concise and accessible way as to make them common parlance across the industry. Still essential.

Droshky answered 10/12, 2009 at 19:48 Comment(0)

Yes the book is still relevant. You can pickup used copies on Amazon if you are worried about its value and sell it through the same channel.

Cremona answered 18/4, 2009 at 11:54 Comment(0)

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