Rating: Summary: Too Terse Review: This book is probably for a good overview if you already know UML and need a refesh. Defintely not a book to learn UML. There are other better books who do explained more clearly. One that I like so far is "UML and RUP: Practical Object-Oriented Design and Analysis" by Jim Arlow which more concise and practical. My opinion is this book is still too terse and bombastic like the other 3 books by the 3 amigos.
Rating: Summary: good for cocktail party conversations Review: Larman, Booch and Fowler are the bestat writing well padded books. A computer science professor recently stated my views in few well chosen words. He said: "I read Grady Booch's first book three times and asked myself what I had learned. I decided nothing!" I recommend the Wrox book by Muller, scientific and to the point
Rating: Summary: A nice agile distillation of UML Review: 20-80 rule applied here: the authoer focused on the 20% of the most useful UML concept and notation, gave a clear and easy-to-read distillation of them. I had read the UML User Guide by the 3 amigo, and was fairly familiar with UML before read this book. I still find it quite interesting to read, especially when the user give his own opinion and advice of how to apply UML to real life project - some people don't like it, but I find the advice quite valuable. The author is an early practioner and important contributor of OOA&D, he followed the spirit of the low ceremony agile software development in the book, which I found very practical. Recommended as a UML must read!
Rating: Summary: A very good introduction Review: I purchased this book even before I knew that it was prescribed as a textbook for my OOAD course. It is a bitesize and readable introduction to UML - and probably all you need if you prefer a lightweight approach to process - as I do. Kendall Scott is the co-author of "UML Distilled". I have since purchased Kendall Scott's "UML Explained" as well. I now use "UML Explained" as a quick reference. It is more suitable as such than "UML Distilled" - which is better when you need to know a bit more. "UML Distilled" is a lean book without the fat, but not without the meat. Read healthy!
Rating: Summary: Essential reading on UML and Objects. Review: In a word - this is a great book. While many other books show UML diagrams and do great descriptions of each of the many kinds of diagrams in the UML, this book adds the why and when - in just the right amount of words. Before I bought the book, my main concern was that the book seemed to be so lacking in content. This was no longer a concern after the first two chapters. I had to read each chapter twice to make sure I do not miss any of Martin Fowler's great explanations. In addition I like how Martin shares his own ideas based on his experience - a risk some writers don't want to take (maybe they lack the experience!). I no longer wonder why this book is considered a must read by people "in the know" on UML and Objects.
Rating: Summary: A great UML snack... Review: I read this book over a year ago, and I am finally catching up on my belated review. No doubt, these authors know their stuff and are influencing the UML community, which in turn influences the applications we develop and the software that we purchase. Overall, I think that this is a great book to read for a big picture explanation of UML and application modeling. I don't think that this book claims to be a UML bible, which is accurate. I refer to this book all the time, and I recommend it highly to application architects, and to developers who would like to better understand enterprise application development.
Rating: Summary: One of the Best books for Understanding UML Review: This was one of the best books for understanding UML Syntax, for beginners and advanced OO Modelers and developers. Well Presented. I would highley recommend this book.
Rating: Summary: should be distilled into a chapter less than 50 pages Review: This book should be distilled into a chapter less than 50 pages, which means the rest 150 or so pages are basically nothing. I took Software Engineering at school, where I received more information in 9 hours than reading this book.
Rating: Summary: Should be titled "Bullspit - Watered Down" Review: Don't beleive the other reviews telling you how great this book is - they must be friends of the authors. This book is absolutely useless. Some of the reviews say it's not a great book for OO beginners or those familiar with UML - DUH! UML was developed for use with OO languages. If you don't know OO, this book won't help, and frankly, it won't help anyway. The UML and upposed "great insights" in it could be condensed down to less than a dozen pages. The first two chapters get you all warm and runny about using the UML and applying an effective development process. Then the subsequent chapters tell you nothing. The examples are so shallow as to be useless. The author points out not just the merely obvious but the painfully obvious, in his apparent treatise to introduce OO, not the UML. I don't believe the man knows the first bloody thing about developing OO systems. The author also reqularly contradicts himself. For example, "Do not refactor a program and add functionality to it at the same time...refactor when you are adding a new function." He also sugggests that you do a little refactoring every day. Yea, what a great way to eliminate any and all stability in your code and constantly inject new problems.
Rating: Summary: Book's okay, I suppose, if you wanna waste money Review: The popularity of this book is completely a mystery. Throughout the whole book, the author shares his little anectdotes: 'I do this', 'I do that', etc. Probably half of the word throughout the book is an "I", which not only hurts the credibility of what he says, but is annoying at times. There is very little information in the book (albeit the book is meant as an intro), too little to be of any use. It would be better to get an intro thru free tutorials on the web, and buy a more comprehensive book by the 'three amigos'.
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