Rating: 
Summary: Some parts excelent, some poor
Review: I have mixed feelings for this book. Parts of the book are awful, other parts are really excellent. The overall impression is still that this is a book worth reading, and keeping in a bookshelf not too far away from your workplace for real time work.The explanations about state diagrams is really good. In general the treatment of state is the strong side of the book. The book explains state machines and how they can, and cannot, be used in a good way. The book also describes two patterns for state machine design. Most parts of the book are well written and easy to read. The design patterns described in the book are not rocket science, but they are (unlike many pattern descriptions) described in a way that is easy to read and understand. The first chapter is awful (skip it, or read on: it will get better). The language in this chapter is dry and hard to read. There is no useful information here. The author declares that real-time design/programming is harder than desktop program design. He also declares that object-oriented programming is generally better than block-structured. The readers already knows this, or otherwise we would not be reading this book. The remarks about C++ in the book are about 50 % accurate and 50 % false. The author seems to have missed a lot of the C++ programming paradigms that have become common during the last five years. I had the expectation that this book would include some insight that you couldn't combine yourself from experience in desktop focused UML and traditional (block-structured, functional) real-time design. The book did not live up to this expectation. (But I guess that expectation was unrealistic.)
Rating: 
Summary: If you write embedded software go and buy this now
Review: Simply stated the first book to devote itself to UML for real-time systems and the only author that does it. Although my background is not in the embedded world, this book introduced me to real-time systems, discussed the advantages in taking the OO approach to developing embedded systems and then explained the UML notation with the real-time extensions and a process for applying it. A MUST HAVE for every embedded developer. END
Rating: 
Summary: I have been converted.
Review: Thanks to this book, I have finally taken the plunge with OOD for our latest safety critical embedded project. I am surprised at how gentle my induction has been. I had always believed that OO methods were inappropriate for real time applications but Bruce Douglass has persuaded me otherwise. He also provides the UML toolbox to pick and choose from and with these tools designs can be expressed in a pithy and unambiguous way that Douglass demonstrates clearly with many examples. Real time concepts and descriptions, of different architectural designs for example, are made that much clearer by the use of UML. This coupled with a repetitious reinforcement of the concepts and notation of the UML itself have the effect of accelerating understanding as the book progresses.
Rating:
Summary: This is not a good book as it was supposed to
Review: The title of the book is good. But the book itself is not as good as it should be. The C++ codes are awful! I prefer one of this author's white paper "State Modeling Using Statecharts and Timing Diagrams" which can be found on online. All he wants to say are there.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent coverage of very usefull UML applications.
Review: This book is easy to read and study -- tuitorial in nature. Covers the design of real-time systems using the UML OO concepts.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your Money
Review: This book is so poorly edited that the examples are very difficult to follow. It appears that this book was originally written as a much bigger book, and then was severely edited-down to its final size. In the process the examples that are used throughout the book were cut-up to the point where they no longer hold together. There are too many inconsistencies between the various sections of the book to follow the details in the examples. A much better book is by the same author: "Doing Hard Time: Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks and Patterns". This book does an excellent job covering the following very difficult topics: 1. Designing Hard Real-Time, Embedded Systems; 2. Designing Object-Oriented Systems; 3. Using UML correctly; 4. Using OO Patterns; 5. Designing an OO Framework
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your Money
Review: This book is so poorly edited that the examples are very difficult to follow. It appears that this book was originally written as a much bigger book, and then was severely edited-down to its final size. In the process the examples that are used throughout the book were cut-up to the point where they no longer hold together. There are too many inconsistencies between the various sections of the book to follow the details in the examples. A much better book is by the same author: "Doing Hard Time: Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks and Patterns". This book does an excellent job covering the following very difficult topics: 1. Designing Hard Real-Time, Embedded Systems; 2. Designing Object-Oriented Systems; 3. Using UML correctly; 4. Using OO Patterns; 5. Designing an OO Framework
Rating:
Summary: Excellent UML Boot for Real-time/Embedded developers.
Review: This is a well written text. The authors use of practical examples (Pace Maker for example) to explain various UML topics helped to relate the concepts together across chapters. The book takes on a real world focus that enables the reader to directly apply what is learned into their own development environment. The flow of the book concludes with a discussion of three levels of design using the UML (Architecture/Mechanistic and Detailed). With these chapters the reader gains a practical insight into the design of a system utilizing the concepts introduced in the earlier chapters. I highly recommend this book to anyone who designs Real Time and Embedded systems and is interested in integrating the UML into their designs.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent UML Boot for Real-time/Embedded developers.
Review: This is a well written text. The authors use of practical examples (Pace Maker for example) to explain various UML topics helped to relate the concepts together across chapters. The book takes on a real world focus that enables the reader to directly apply what is learned into their own development environment. The flow of the book concludes with a discussion of three levels of design using the UML (Architecture/Mechanistic and Detailed). With these chapters the reader gains a practical insight into the design of a system utilizing the concepts introduced in the earlier chapters. I highly recommend this book to anyone who designs Real Time and Embedded systems and is interested in integrating the UML into their designs.
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