Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This is a good book as these things go. It's not an easy read, for reasons I'm not all that sure why, but it's chock full of decent stuff. The chapters on logical & physical database design in particular make a hard slog out of what many already know intuitively.There's the wiff of big IS departments about this book - an environment which has largely had its day. Real systems development just doesn't work as methodically or logically as presented here. I was, however, impressed with how the author would admit real-world reasons for why the presented theories don't always happen. Its biggest problem is its size. A condensed version could take the most salient points and be half the size of this tome, and the rest could be put in another add-on book. It would be much easier to read physically, and probably seem less intimidating. The index is pretty ordinary. If they ever do a 4th edition, this is one area that needs work. Terms like "Physical Context Diagram", "intelligent key" are dropped in the text, but not indexed. Actually, "intelligent key' is never even explained.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This is a good book as these things go. It's not an easy read, for reasons I'm not all that sure why, but it's chock full of decent stuff. The chapters on logical & physical database design in particular make a hard slog out of what many already know intuitively. There's the wiff of big IS departments about this book - an environment which has largely had its day. Real systems development just doesn't work as methodically or logically as presented here. I was, however, impressed with how the author would admit real-world reasons for why the presented theories don't always happen. Its biggest problem is its size. A condensed version could take the most salient points and be half the size of this tome, and the rest could be put in another add-on book. It would be much easier to read physically, and probably seem less intimidating. The index is pretty ordinary. If they ever do a 4th edition, this is one area that needs work. Terms like "Physical Context Diagram", "intelligent key" are dropped in the text, but not indexed. Actually, "intelligent key' is never even explained.
Rating: 
Summary: A decent book on fundamentals of System Analysis and Design
Review: This is a very decent treatment on systems analysis and design, and is a good supplementary book you should own together with the more popular, OOAD/UML analysis and design books.
The book starts well with an overall introduction of the Systems Development LifeCycle (SDLC), and has effectively used the classical waterfall model both to structure the texts and to show how the different pieces of analysis and design activities fit together.
The book then goes on to cover the the project initiation and requirement analysis, and how those two steps lead to the the designs and design choices. It contains some good discussions on ways to study the project feasibility and gathering of business requirements.
The book fell a little short on the design part. While detailed designs (such as form design, database design, etc.) are well represented, the architecture designs were not explicitly covered in the book. By architecture design, I mean the partition/decomposition of the system functionalities, as well as the choices of key technology components that implement those functionalities. The concept of subsystems/modules are mentioned in various part of the book, but are not evalevated to a consistent discussion on sytem architecture and design decisions.
Two other comments on the book:
1. The book contains a good discussion of system analyst as profession. In corporate environment, consultant, business analyst, system architect, system designer, Sr. developers/Programers are all valid career path for those with good SAD skills.
2. The book uses the terminology of CASE tool, which made the book seem more dated than it actually is.
As an IT architect and designer for large and complex information systems, my work needs a lot more resources and information (in terms of depth and coverage) than covered in this introductory texts. However, I still find the book valuable. I reference it from time to time, both to refresh my memory and to "get back to fundamentals".
Rating: 
Summary: An excelent Systems Analysis and Design book!.
Review: This is a very recommended book for those people that are studying Systems Analysis and Design, because it explains in a simple mode the most complicated things; and includes another methodologies further the structured (like OO and RAD)!. If you are looking for a complete book in Systems, this is The book. Also recommended: Systems Analysis and Design; Julie and Kenneth Kendall.
| 
