Customer Reviews

Modern Systems Analysis and Design (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just finished a system analysis & design course with this text book. A through-semester project was also done. Actually, I had a chance to compare severals book on System Analysis & Design. My bottom line for this book is that this book is the one currently most worth to buy. Its throughful and easy-to-understand explanation for each SDLC step, how it's applied in real business situation and all possible tools for each step, such as CASE, JAD, DFDs, E-R diagrams (Flankly, i think ER diagrams of this book need more improvement..) and so on. All are really good to catch out clear concept to understand 'what is the system analysis & design' and 'how it works'. If you want to buy a book delivering clear concepts of system analysis and design and how it works in real business situation. I recommend this book. But, If you want very specific, in-dept or new-kids-on-the-block kind of topics for System analysis & design, I don't recommend.

As an adjunct professor of systems and database design, I use Hoffer's text in my master's level courses. It covers a huge breadth of topics in sufficient detail to give students a basic understanding, even if we completely skip the large numbers of case histories. I'm particularly pleased with its illustrations and the manner in which it handles the zillions of disparate diagramming methods available for system design. I'm happy enough with it as a classroom text that I use it as a reference for my day-job as a computer consultant. Strongly reccomended.

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.

This summer, I took a class in which we read this entire book. Yes, all 600+ pages of text (thankfully we weren't tested on the index). This HUGE book presents a very thorough treament of the Systems Development Life Cycle and the profession of Systems Analysis. From Project Planning to System Maintenance, hardly a detail gets shunned.

The book overall emphasizes the traditional SDLC, but weaves in some discussion of newer methodologies such as: Extreme Programming, Object Oriented design, CASE tools, and other agile methodologies. And if anyone wants to know what a Systems Analyst does day to day on the job, Appendix 1 spells it out pretty thoroughly. Anyone thinking of becoming a Systems Analyst should at least read this appendix, if not the entire book.

The book doesn't emphasize customer service to a great degree. As a working Systems Analyst, I find that customer service skills come in handy every single day. Appendix 1 does mention this skill, but not in an overly detailed manner. Information Systems in general deemphasizes the customer side of things ("User error!!!" still gets mockingly shouted across many help desks and support centers), which accounts for some of the problems that the industry as a whole faces (sometimes we're a little too easy to outsource). So a little more on the importance of customer service might have improved the book.

In the end, this book is a textbook. The going gets rough in many places as details pile upon details. But to understand some of the complexities of system development, a detailed approach probably represents the best way to go. So if you're looking for pleasure reading, look elsewhere. But if you want a detailed, granular, sometimes heady, complex treatment of the analysis side of Systems Development, this book offers more than you'll need for the traditional approach to the SDLC. Those looking for details on XP or OOP should look elsewhere.

I was just reading some of the other reviews and was surprised to discover this text is also used for Master's level classes. I'm pursuing my BSIS through distance learning, and this book was used for a recent class. Although I sometimes struggle with reading texts because they are not as exciting as the nearest fiction book, this was surprisingly easy to make it through. I didn't get lost in long paragraphs and obscure explanations. It gets a great big thumbs up from me!

I used this book to learn system analysis and design while taking graduate course. The book is well-written and the layout is pretty good. The authors broke down the information in such way you can understand easily. The book also has some exercises that help you practice what you learn. I kept the book and plan to use it a reference. I will recommend it if you are serious about learning System Analysis and Design.

I had to buy this book because of a class...I can't even comprehend how can professors force this book unto students...it is boring to say the least. Paragraphs are eternal with little graphics. If you are not forced to get it, you will do yourself a favor by buying something else.

I used this book for an online course and I really felt like I was slogging through it. Obviously it's a textbook, but there are probably books out there that get to the point in fewer words. Most chapters are 30-50 pages long, and though some of the examples are helpful, overall the impact of the material is lost in paragraphs that never end. I would say if you aren't in a course that is using this text as a supplement, buy something else. The examples aren't good enough to give you a sense of database structure or systems diagrams without some real world comparison.

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".

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.