Rating: 
Summary: Great Introduction, Look elsewhere for nitty-griity
Review: If you are new to the UML this is definately a book you want to pick up. Even if you think you know UML, Martin's great examples and writing style will make you think about you projects in a new light. After reading it I felt enerigized by the possibilities, while other books left me feeling weighted by syntax, minutia and dogma. The real strength of this book and Martin's presentation of the UML is that he never forgets that the only reason the UML exists is to convey and illicit ideas. You will love this book!James Carroll MCSD, MCT
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD FOR A BEGINNER
Review: I have read several UML textbooks in the last year or so, and this book was one of the best. Its only problem was that it did not go into depth far enough
Rating: 
Summary: Check out another book for an expanded example
Review: For those of you looking for a more expansive description of use cases, and also a book that shows how several types of UML diagrams evolve as an example system is being designed, check out "Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UML," by Doug Rosenberg with Kendall Scott. I think you'll find that it complements "Distilled" nicely in other ways as well.
Rating: 
Summary: A great introduction book to UML
Review: This review also appears in comp.object. I must confess that I didn't know UML at all when I picked up this book. I just had this simple question in mind: What the heck is UML anyway? Now that I have finished reading it, I feel like to give the book a score of 90 out of 100 for the answer it provides. Numbered in 180 or so pages, the book really is a feather-weight compared with its peers in the same series such as _The Unified Software Development Process_. With wide margins on both sides, texts are printed in bigger fonts than what we normally see in technical books. Adding the neatly drawn diagrams, and we have a book with tremendous visual appeal to a busy professional who, after a day's hard work with the computer, just wants to read something less intimidating and demanding than a reference manual while still catching up with the trend in technology. I am talking about myself here. In this regard, the book suits my need perfectly. I particularly enjoy the author's sense of humor, notably in the light-hearted presentation of the brief history of UML, which is part of Chapter 1. Chapter 2, titled 'An Outline Development Process', serves as a road map to the chapters that follow. By outlining the development process in four major phases (inception, elaboration, construction and transition), the author not only brings up important components in UML such as 'use cases' and class diagram, but also offers a good deal of sound advices on software engineering based on his own experience, which I find invaluable. One thing I am not completely satisfied with is the example used in Chapter 3 ('Use Cases'. The author makes a well-intent, but ill-planned, attempt to illustrate the concepts in use cases with a diagram of a financial trading system, which, however, is totally foreign to me. Although I can understand that people like to pick examples from their past work, I must disagree on the author's choice in this case. Another area that can be improved in the book is the diagrams, which I feel are simply thrown at my face in one piece -- mixed with annotation marks in some cases (e.g., the class diagram on p.50) -- to save the space, I assume. Novices like me would have a hard time telling the annotation marks apart from the diagram at the beginning. In addition, to make the diagrams easier to follow, complex ones such as the class diagram on p.50 might be better presented in several steps (e.g., first disassembled, then assembled together). Copyright (C) 1999 by Huayong Yang.
Rating:
Summary: THE best INTRODUCTION to UML
Review: I read the first edition of this book 'ages' ago and I was left very impressed and satisfied. Not only does it provide the briefest guide to UML that exists, but it is also very well written. With this book, one does not need to read a single sentence twice; one reads, comprehends and remembers the material on a single reading pass. I recommend this book to managers, developers and students alike that wish to be introduced to the UML. Furthermore, this is the only book covering the OMG UML 1.3, but I am sure 1.3, but they were written before the approval of the OMG for version 1.3]
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Summary: The figure 5.1
Review: I've read a review here, which says that "UML Distilled" 3rd edition has a lot of errors and mention missing figure 5.1 as an example. So I bought "UML Weekend Crash Course" instead, and was very disappointed with it. Then I finally bought this book, and I love it. It describes everything in a clear and simple way. And, by the way, the figure 5.1 is there on page 67, exactly where it should be.
Rating:
Summary: A readable and informative introduction to UML
Review: Readable! Excellent intro. On the inside covers, nice quick reference. As a web developer with no UML experience looking for a clearer way to pre-visualize my projects, this book got me going fast and offered perspective on best usage of the UML. The author's experience-driven opinions helped me learn faster. The book is honest about itself in that it admits it doesn't try to offer rare details of the UML that you'll rarely use. It keeps to what you'll use MOST of the time. It delivered 100% of what I was looking for. If you're already using the UML, I still think this is a great read for you.
Rating:
Summary: Rather too compressed
Review: If you are familiar with the principles of object oriented programming but you are not familiar with UML standards of OMG, and if your time is short and a condensed reader's digest is what you need, then this is the book for you... and even then, only as a starting point. If you want to do anything serious with UML you shall need more. I have given this 4 stars for what the book is; for many readers' requirements it is worth much less.
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Summary: Agile book about UML
Review: This is an agile book! You don't have to read 1000 Pages to learn all this unnecessary details about exotic UML diagram types. Martin Fowler teaches the most important diagram types and much more like when to use which and how to use it including an essence of his experience as a software architect and consultant. (3rd Edition available)
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Summary: Iterative and incremental introduction to the language
Review: I think that to fully understand the existence of this book we have to refer the foreword (in the 1st edition) by the three amigos. There, it is said: "We believe that the availability of a standard modeling language will encourage more developers to model their software systems before building them", and "The creation of the UML was itself an iterative and incremental process very similar to the modeling of a large software system", and last "Creating and agreeing on a standard modeling language is a significant challenge by itself". So in that period, early 1997, the focus was on the unification of the many languages used to visually express designs. On the other side there was another important aim to achieve: "educating the development community, and presenting the UML in a manner that is both accessible and in the context of a software development process". So Booch, Jacobson, and Rumbaugh had to introduce the software community to their achievement, the UML (the Unified Process had to come a bit later), in an iterative and incremental way (a first step before they gave birth to their books) and they had to choose someone with "insight and wisdom" for this job. Their choice fell on Martin Fowler.
I read the first edition of this book one year after its publication (may 1997) when I had already been teaching OOAD methods (mainly Yourdon-Coad and Booch) in my country for a few years. I immediately felt at home with the UML (1.0, and soon after with 1.1), because Mr. Fowler expressed in a simple and effective way in his short guide, first book on the language, the key concepts of the notation along with its semantics, keeping the promises he made at the beginning of the book. The first iteration of the language was successfully delivered to me `in time and budget', and I could introduce the notation in my courses with a great effect. Interesting parts of the book are the overview of the process (chapter 2) and the presentation of either refactoring and patterns.
Few months ago, the company I'm working for needed, for one of its departments, a revision to the process and a widespread use of a visual language. The choice fell on a light iterative process based on UML and I was chosen as trainer/mentor. The starting point to UML was this book (the italian translation), in its 2nd (on UML 1.3) and 3rd edition (on UML 2.0).
The book proved useful particularly for the quick introduction to the basic concepts of the language.
UML 2 was not exploited because of the lack of tools that use it, so it was not a priority in the training.
Today, with so many books on UML in the arena, this is still one of the main to and through the language, so thank you Martin (Grady, Ivar, and Jim) for your job (not forgetting the giants whose shoulders they're standing on).
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