The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)

Rating:
Summary: Tip Top for the dedicated UML modeler
Review: I do a lot of UML modelling, and I keep this book by my desk at all times. It has in-depth information, is well-written, and is well-organized.

The Reference Manual and the Users Guide are generally sold as a pair. Quite frankly, if you have the Reference Manual, then you don't need the Users Guide.

If you are just learning UML and are already familiar with any formal design methodologies, then you can do just fine with the Reference Manual alone. However, if you are new to graphical modeling in general, you may want to buy "UML for Dummies" to serve as a useful introduction.

Rating:
Summary: Unusual, but good reference book
Review: I was expecting a dry through explanation of notation. This book is not that at all. This was by design though.

The book attempts to cover all of the important topics. To get there, it takes an unusual approach. There are a few introduction chapters as might be expected. Part 2 of the book has one chapter per view. In each chapter, the view is covered both notation-wise and discussion-wise.

Part 3 was the biggest surprise for me. It is an "encyclopedia of terms." This section is worthwhile even if you are an OO person who doesn't care about diagramming with UML. It gives a definition for each term and frequently the Semantics, Notation and Discussion associated with it.

However, this book is a rough read. I opened the book randomly and found the following as an example: "Branch: An element in a state machine in which a single trigger leads to more than one possible outcome, each with its own guard condition." After reading it a second time carefully along with looking up what a "guard condition" was, I understood. The point though is that the definitions are rigorous, but hard to digest on a quick read.

The book is worth buying for your reference library for the encyclopedia section alone. I will personally be using it when I have a situation to model and know the term but not the UML syntax. The encyclopedia will lead me to the syntax.

Rating:
Summary: Solid reference source
Review: Let's be clear - this book is a reference manual, not a tutorial. Don't use this book to learn what the UML is all about. But when you want to answer a question about how to show something or what something means, then this book is invaluable. It's my first reference choice because, unlike the specification, it is written with explanation in mind. I turn to it more than any other UML book and so far I've found that when this can't answer my question, it's because the UML designers haven't thought about it yet.

So to sum up: if you use the UML seriously, make sure you have a copy handy.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference
Review: This book is a comprehensive, well-written reference that stays by my side whenever I'm modeling. The accompanying CD-Rom has the book's text stored as a PDF file and is arguably even more useful because it is hyperlinked.

A few others reviewers disagree, but their complaints suggest a misunderstanding of the book's intent. This book is a "Reference Manual." It is not a tutorial and does not cover tangental topics (like good/bad OOAD practices). Think of it as a UML encyclopedia.

If you want a concise description of every UML diagram and notation then this is the book you want.

Rating:
Summary: Accurate, complete (for UML 1.*); not for UML beginners
Review: This book is one in a series of three by the three amigos. It is certainly the most authoritative and accurate of all three (the other two being very fuzzy in places). The book consists of the following major sections:

I: Background (some history) II: UML concepts (static, use case, statechart and other 'views') III: Reference

This book is pure syntax and can answer most of the questions that you might have about UML syntax. However, this book is not for beginners because it assumes (in my opinion) that you have applied UML to real-life situations. I find the book to be well-written (even if it is fairly dry) and compares favouably with other books in the UML series. There are different ways that you can use this book. First, you can consult it to check of you are using the correct UML syntax in your applications. Second, you can use it to deteremine what you have still to learn in UML (for example, activity diagrams, statecharts). This book should complement the other, more application-specific UML books. For example, it could be seen as a follow-up of Fowler's somewhat outdated UML Primer.

It would have been a good idea if the authors had included a complete test case showing how all the specific 'views' are documented and how they fit together. UML has about 11 different views and which one to use and when will be a major undertaking if you are embarking on a first project.

This book will be outdated as soon as the new UML 2.0 specification is ready. Do the authors have plans for a new version of their book "UML Reference 2.0"?

Rating:
Summary: Promises to become the standard UML reference book
Review: This book, the second in the Rational Amigos' UML trilogy, promises to become the standard UML reference book for those who don't want to wade through the specification. The authors explain in clear, concise English all of the major semantic and syntactic (notation) constructs. Most of the content is contained in the "Encyclopedia of Terms" chapter, which is liberally illustrated with examples and includes many useful summary tables. This is the reference book that I recommend to colleagues and clients who don't have the time or the inclination to read the metamodel specification. It makes an excellent companion volume to the UML User Guide.