Requirements Analysis and System Design: Developing Information Systems with UML

Rating:
Summary: A UML and system development book with rich case studies
Review: Here is another excellent book on UML and system development using UML. I found this book highly practical, amusing, and instructive to read. Among the many excellent features of this book, I found the following five main strengths of the book. First, the book is rich with five case studies. Many books are rich in discussion, but weak in examples and case studies. This book uses five case studies. Some case studies are detailed while other case studies are short. Second, the book covers many advanced concepts, not usually covered by many other popular UML books in one volume. Those advanced features include reified classes, interface inheritance, implementation inheritance, extension inheritance, delegation, four types of aggregations, etc. Fourth, the book integrates other important parts of the system development activities such as user interface design, window navigation diagrams, database design for OO, OR, and relational databases. Fifth, therefore, the book covers all the life cycle of OO system developments, beginning from requirements modeling to user interface design, database design and testing. All these features make this book as an excellent choice for learning how to use UML to develop a complete system. One of several minor drawbacks is that some discussions appear in several different sections. This is due to a fairly long guided tutorial in Chapter 2.

Rating:
Summary: A UML and system development book with rich case studies
Review: Here is another excellent book on UML and system development using UML. I found this book highly practical, amusing, and instructive to read. Among the many excellent features of this book, I found the following five main strengths of the book. First, the book is rich with five case studies. Many books are rich in discussion, but weak in examples and case studies. This book uses five case studies. Some case studies are detailed while other case studies are short. Second, the book covers many advanced concepts, not usually covered by many other popular UML books in one volume. Those advanced features include reified classes, interface inheritance, implementation inheritance, extension inheritance, delegation, four types of aggregations, etc. Fourth, the book integrates other important parts of the system development activities such as user interface design, window navigation diagrams, database design for OO, OR, and relational databases. Fifth, therefore, the book covers all the life cycle of OO system developments, beginning from requirements modeling to user interface design, database design and testing. All these features make this book as an excellent choice for learning how to use UML to develop a complete system. One of several minor drawbacks is that some discussions appear in several different sections. This is due to a fairly long guided tutorial in Chapter 2.

Rating:
Summary: Superficial, strained and vague
Review: Honestly, I only endured this book to its middle. Superficial is the first characteristic that comes to mind. The author gives a brief description of object technology (which turnes out to be rather a list of UML concepts). A very short overview of requirement analysis follows - only "what", little of "why", almost nothing about "how". The requirements document template is here too, but you could really find better examples on the net, including real standards.

But only in chapter 4 the book starts to blossom. You quickly find out, that the author has little if any real world design experience. Yes, the case-studies are a bit strained, still they are tolerable. But the author does poor modeling: his models are, well, arguable. Some classes 'follow' from the requirements without real explanation. And the naming is just plain ugly: consider a 'areYouOpen' method on a Course class and an 'areYouValid' method on a Student class.

UML is covered, again, superficially. The short Fowler's book, UML Distilled, goes to greater depths on almost any topic (not to say Fowler *does* cover some experience in software process).

If you need anything better, than a one term undergraduate learn-and-forget coursebook, don't bother.

Rating:
Summary: Developing Information Systems with UML
Review: This book covers a very important issue of applying the new modeling language UML to analyse and design object-oriented information systems. The author clearly explains problems facing developers of information systems and offers practical advice on analysing and designing systems. Examples are offered to illustrate each new concept as it is introduced. The content of the book is applicable to the creation of high- quality software system. The book offers a good source for the learning about UML. The book is an interesting and useful and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about UML and object-oriented systems. It contains all you might want to know about software process: Requirements, Analysis, Design, Implementation and Test. Each chapter states the emphasis of the corresponding phase, describes the planning required for the phase. It mentions how this all fits in with the business case for the project and what the key deliverables are for each phase.

Rating:
Summary: Applying UML to real-life project
Review: This book is aimed at university curriculum, but I found that it is also beneficial to those working in IT field like me.

I have read several books about UML and Object-Orient Technology. They were able to explain what was UML and how to do OO modelling and development, but without solid examples. After reading, I still could not master the idea and skill to apply UML successfully.

Contrarily, this book uses teach-by-example approach to explain and guide me through the necessary steps in applying UML to real-life project from requirements determination, analysis to database/program design. It also emphasises the importance of iterative and incremental process.

I would like to recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to apply UML, especially in requirements analysis and system design.