Congratulations! You have reached the end of this book. If you have also been diligent in keeping current with the exercises, then perhaps you are able to reflect upon all your hard work and recognize all the new concepts you have not only learned but also reinforced through the exercises. Perhaps you have even experienced some of your own Aha! moments when an elusive object-oriented concept finally became clear for you.

In the 1960s, Gene Roddenberry brought Star Trek to a nation of American television viewers. Each episode began with the following prologue:

  • Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.

With the help of our knowledge of the basic principles of object-oriented programming, we now have explored some new worlds in the form of design patterns. However, we have only scratched the surface of this topic. There are many more design patterns that remain unexplored and still others undiscovered.

Meanwhile, now we are much more prepared to navigate throughout the galaxy of software design to explore and discover new design patterns; to seek out new ways to simplify our development and maintenance efforts; to raise the development discipline of our colleagues to a higher standard, perhaps elevating the art of software development in our entire organization to a bold new level where no one has gone before.