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Summary: The Unified Modeling Language User Guide
Review: oh great this is the great introductory book .which must be reviewed by every one.this is the book given by rational university in their 4 day training module.really it's good book for studying)not for reading) and understanding abc's of umlfrom three ambigos.any how thanks for authors for giving such a great book.i had read full book from first to last.i din't find any page not usuful.so try to refer this book at least once.
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Summary: A reader in the Netherlands
Review: I am an UML trainer and have used all three books by the amigos. I shall relate what my students have to say ... The reactions from my students is that the Booch book lacks depth (my students work in embedded systems, workflow, CAD ...), repeats itself and is unsuitable for serious work. Booch's earlier books did have some real applications (for example, the Home Heating System). In particular, his use of state machines was good. Today, they have been scaled down somewhat (they are mostly of the so-called anthroposophic kind and thus useless). Concluding, it is a pity that someone with the wealth of knowledge and background that the author has has not taken the effort to produce something of more value. After all, novice developers look up to the 3 amigos as being the 'gurus' of UML.
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Summary: Yaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Review: This is arguably one of the worst technical books I've read in a long time, and I say this because it takes Mr. Booch an astounding 428 pages to present what could easily have been accomodated in a volume less than half this size. Why spend twice as much time reading for the same ammount of information? If you've already purchased the book, try skipping every other paragraph... chances are there will be no semantic loss. The real content is in the diagrams, but these simply do not (IMHO)demand the quantity of supporting text. I suspect that Grady Booch gets paid by the word (or page perhaps). Personally I like my technical information to be accurate, comprehensible and terse. I don't like being frustrated by a book that is hihgly repetitive (just see how often the OO and building construction analogy is flogged to death and then chased into the after life). In terms of usefulness, I don't think this book has any value. It's not a reference and it's also incomplete (does not cover OCL)... and no I don't want to buy a seperate book by Jim Rumbaugh to get the information on that. Instead I'll be getting it for free at the omg web-site).
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book as introduction to UML
Review: Who this book is for: Programmers with a solid understanding of Java or C++ but minimal experience using UML. The book will give the novice user a complete listing of all the terms and diagrams used in UML. It gives decent examples to describe how terms and diagrams work. After reading the book, a user can decipher any UML diagram they are presented with and understand the view the developer intends to convey. The book is not for developers with in-depth knowledge of UML. They will be bored with the terms and examples. I imagine they are looking for more of a theoretical approach to what makes a UML diagram efficient or inefficent, not how to read the diagram (thus the nature of some of the negative reviews). Personally, I liked the fact the book was broken into 30 some chapters. I read a chapter an evening for a month and bang, I had a solid foundation on UML, just what I was looking for. The chapters were short, to the point though they did contain repetitve information (maybe it was intentional as repetition is how people learn.) I thought the book rocked. I read plenty of CS related books but this is the only one I have ever considered writing a review for because I think it can truly benefit the novice to intermediate UML user.
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Summary: Laziness may be virtue in programming, but not in writing
Review: It's no wonder Booch et al are such brilliant pundits of object-oriented programming. They can't help it. Object-oriented thinking has leaked out of their programming and into their writing! This book contains 31 chapter classes, each derived from CChapter, where CChapter implements ALMOST EVERYTHING. You get the feeling you've read the same paragraphs many times. In fact, you have. There are some paragraphs that you will read 31 times if you read the whole book. Of course, the real content of each chapter is important to read, but it was a little insulting to this reader to have to skip over so many paragraphs because they were essentially duplicates of earlier ones. The authors should have been less lazy in their approach to this book. It would have been quite a bit shorter, and more enjoyable to read. That said, it is an important primer for the UML. It introduces the kinds of diagrams you can make and all their highlights. The writing itself is good, if repetitive.
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Summary: Must have
Review: Clear, precise, easy to understand. Must read for us old timers and aspiring architects.
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Summary: Definitely not the user guide
Review: I do software development for many years and this book definitely is not what usually assumed by "user guide" title. UML is a language, and it should be treated as a language. Therefore I would compare the content of this book to extensive description of the language grammar, which is very dry and useless subject for practical person. The book authors forgot that you cannot learn the language learning only its grammar - no way! Book does not show how language constructions actually work and what is the relative importance of different elements of the language when you try to describe your system. Every chapter finishes with bunch of general advises how to apply UML to describe your system, but never shows how actually to do it for a specific system. I read OMT book written by Rumbaugh and it was similar to this one. Both of them assumed that readers love UML/OMT for the sake of UML/OMT. It is pity that such an exciting subject was converted into boring text by the authors who don't know how to write useful books.
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Summary: Not good enough; poor organization, no good examples
Review: If this were the only UML book in existence, it would deserve 5 stars. It contains a lot of information and a nearly comprehensive list of language features without the dry tone of a reference. But there are better books on the market and this is not the one to spend your $45 on. If you want a comprehensive reference, get the UML reference. If you want an introduction, get UML Distilled. I purchased this text because the introduction to UML Distilled said that this book would be better if you wanted a really in depth understanding of the UML. Unfortunately, it does not fulfill this role. While it succeeds in catelogging nearly all the features of UML, it has no unified examples. Indeed, all the examples are next to trivial. The book is not worthless. I read it and worked through some examples from my own experience, and I'm pretty comfortable with UML now. But good examples are something a text like this should provide. To really see the UML in action, I'm going to have to buy another book. I'll keep this one as a reference, but that isn't the purpose it was designed for.
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Summary: A good book on UML
Review: I have used "The Unified Modeling Language User Guide" as a reference in my courses on UML. I consider it a good book, but it has some flaws: some analogies and examples are too simplistic and some concepts are described multiple times in different chapters. The text could be improved in future editions. If you are learning UML, good companions to this book are: "Applying Uml and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design" and "UML Distilled, Second Edition: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language".
Rating:
Summary: An average book
Review: If you don't know UML, you may start with it. If you have a little bit knowledge on UML, then the book is just too wordy for you. This book is best if the authors can compress it into 1/3 of its current volumn. Some of the symbols are used before they are explained. But in general, most of the concepts are explained clearly. None of the phone number and http address given together with this book work. So you won't get a free-CD through this way.
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