Customer Reviews

Enterprise Java with UML

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is an excellent resource for advanced Java architects and developers trying to learn the UML paradigm. It weeds out the UML that you dont want to know and concentrates on Java-applicable UML. As the title itself specifies, this is neither for non-Java readers nor for those Enterprise Java developers who don't need UML. All technologies related to Enterprise Java are here: EJB, XML, CORBA, RMI-IIOP and Servlets.

I too agree that this book is an excellent resource. It does an excellent job of combining many aspects of the software life cycle as it pertains to enterprise java. The author's style is easy to read and the book is organized in a fashion that allows the user to progress through each new level of the design and implementation phase as if they were working on the project themselves. It covers enough of the UML basics to allow you to build strong software requirement and design docs that can be understood by developers and testers. I have found it to be an invaluable resource.

"Enterprise Java with UML" (John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-38680-4) ) by C.T. Arrington is an excellent book covering the topic of Software Development using UML.This book is about modeling all phases of the software lifecycle using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to build the artifacts. The author describes the modeling process for requirements gathering, Object Oriented Analysis, technology selection, software architecture, software design and implementation. The author demonstrated the advantage of participants utilizing a common language (UML notation) for communication. The author stressed viewing each phase from the proper perspective. For example, requirements gathering must emphasize viewing the model from the customer's perspective as the model is developed while Object Oriented analysis is a view from the developers perspective. The author also identified diagrams that are used for each phase. For requirements gathering the diagrams will include use case diagrams, text descriptions of each use case, and activity diagrams. During Object Oriented analysis, diagrams will include class diagrams, state charts, package diagrams, sequence diagrams, and collaboration diagrams. The author also provided useful steps and evaluation criteria to identify when a phase is successfully completed and when entry to the next phase was premature. The book is organized in pairs of chapters. One chapter discusses theory followed by a chapter that uses the theory to implement a sample project. The sample project is an example of a time recording system and demonstrates the phases of modeling as the book progresses through each phase. Experienced developers will want to focus on the chapters that model the sample. These chapters contain tips and evaluation criteria that are not found in the chapters on theory. Two observations that would improve the usability of this book: a quick reference for UML notation, and a list of diagrams for each phase with references to the figures in the text. This book is an easy read and practical enough that it makes an excellent textbook on implementing software projects using UML.

I've bought a number of books on UML but none of them have really been all that useful in actually designing real world systems. This book covers a real world application from the conceptual stage through design and implementation. Throughout the book, the designer/developer is introduced to important concepts covering many aspects of J2EE design using UML.

Now I really know what UML is, finally I have a clear idea on how to apply it in real projects (not only J2EE ones), and I can appreciate its value as a great way to communicate ideas. The Author's *real* experience really shines through: everything is explained in practical terms, the examples are of a quality that can rarely be found in books (simple but not trivial, rich in details but not verbose, and thoroughly discussed and carefully engineered), quality that can only be the product of clear and sound understanding of the matters, understanding made in the trenches of complex projects.
Need to know UML ? Here I've found the clearest explanation of the various UML diagrams, with simple examples to convey the fundamental features of every diagram; forget the "UML in 24 hours" books!
Another great value of this book is the discussion of how to map the UML diagrams in Java: it was invaluable for me, since I could immediately use my OOP experience to get a practical feeling of the diagrams, in so reinforcing my understanding; an UML association, at the end, it's just a member variable, and I wonder why this is one of the few books that tells you that immediately, without filling the pages with a dozen of Academic words and acronyms.
And everything applied to J2EE, that hot technology that only a few have had experience with ... with the usual high quality, especially the discussions of the strong and weak points of every J2EE sub-technology.
Five stars!

OK, so you know a bit about UML. You've read about the concepts and terminology in books like The UML User Guide and maybe others. But something is missing: how do you put it all together into a practical
project ? Well, if that's what you're looking for then this book is for you. Arrington puts UML into the context of a full application development lifecycle telling you what, when, why and how to use UML elements.
That would be enough for a good book but he also gives a wealth on practical advice on how to avoid pitfalls, track your progress, focus on what you need to do, assess technology and more. After you finish the
book, knowing the context of UML in the development process will even help you to understand concepts you've read previously in other books.

This is a good introductory book for UML in general. My one complaint is in the handling of the diagrams. Whoever put the book together was loathe to put any diagrams in the middle of pages, so they are all at the top or bottom of a page; consequently they are sometimes in the wrong place - in the middle of a previous section, on another page, or some other odd place.

Trying to develop a Java application without first developing a model can lead to a poorly designed application that fails to fulfill the needs of users, lacks reusability, and is difficult to maintain. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) was developed as an open standard notation to assist developers in modeling OO applications. As enterprise developers we are finding that we are expected to be able to design applications using UML, explain UML diagrams to our users, or be able to develop applications from UML diagrams. UML can be difficult and confusing to use and many of the books available fail to clearly explain the proper use of this development tool. "Enterprise Java with UML", by CT Arrington is an excellent introduction into the complexities of UML. Arrington takes us through the entire lifecycle of a sample EJB application (a timecard system) from requirements gathering to implementation. In alternating chapters he explains the use of UML (use cases, sequence diagrams, class diagrams, etc.) for that step in the development cycle and then uses what he just explained to develop the timecard system. Along the way we make technology decisions, develop our design, and ultimately convert our design into actual code. By the time we are done UML has become a new tool in our toolbox. Arrington has done a very good job explaining UML although some familiarity with UML notation (or at least a handy manual) would be helpful. This is a must have book for any Java developer wishing to learn UML.

The two strengths of this book are showing object-oriented analysis and design - UML centered - for a simple enterprise problem and making powerful cases for doing analysis and design using use cases, sequence diagrams and class diagrams before jumping into the code. The diagrams have value for explaining a software system to people who are not proficient in the implementation language.
The UI piece of the problem is handled by a clever abstract factory solution instead of using JSP. It seems the modern movement is toward prototyping by business analysts using Frontpage or Dreamweaver, or such, and then refactoring the pages with JSP. I'm not sure everyone would want to abstract the HTML the way the book does.
It seems that publishers are getting a little lazy; there are some typographical problems that a person who passed high school English should catch. There are some phrases that are repeated too much and should have been re-worded or removed as well.
Although it is not an easy subject, this book will point the developer down the right direction and give her or him plenty to think about.

This book takes you through the development of an application from proposal to implementation. In alternating chapters the authors explain the use of UML for a particular step in the development lifecycle and then demonstrate what they just explained to develop a sample timecard system. The best part of the book, which is not significantly different than the first edition, is the first half in which the authors discuss requirements gathering and object oriented analysis. The book is worth the price for this first part alone.

The second half of the book has been expanded to discuss new J2EE technologies. The chapters on evaluating technologies are good as far as discussing how to evaluate technologies but the actual analysis is weak as they ignore candidate technologies such as Struts in favor of their own homegrown HTML production framework. They also fail to explain why EJBs are a better choice for their sample application than simply using Servlets/JSPs/JDBC. The final section on design gets bogged down with too many pages of code listings and not enough explanations for the code.

Arrington and Rayhan have done a very good job explaining UML although some familiarity with UML notation (or at least a handy manual) would be helpful. If you already own the first edition then you can ignore this edition. If you don't own it then you will definitely want to read this book. This is a must have book for any Java architect/developer doing OOAD.