Customer Reviews

The Object Advantage

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With Booch's OOA/D and Rumbaugh et al's OMT of the same mid-90's era, Jacobsen's Use Cases complete a set of the most powerful contemporary approaches to software development prior to UML (no coincidence that they joined forces at Rational!).

The well-integrated contents include: business engineering (definitions, the "new company", BPR, risk management), what is business modelling (definitions, traditional ways of modelling- SA/SD, IDEF, SADT, working with business models), object orientation (definitions & modelling), OO business modelling (re-engineering, business context), architecture, reversing the existing business, forward business engineering, an example, building the supporting information system, managing OO business engineering, and scaling up to a large business.

Strengths include the attractive appropriate use of figures, sidebars, references and supporting material; and the depth of proven use cases and applications supporting the credibility of approach. A book you can read cover to cover, or dip into a section for reference. Much of the approach is now included in Rational's UML - so the book still has value for business and software development.

Criticisms include the lack of more fully worked examples, and the lack of checklists (although chapter summaries are good).

Overall a great intermediate-level text (not introductory nor complete enough to be expert) for software developers, engineers, and business information systems consultants.

This book tackles business process reengineering from an information technology perspective. While I personally disagree with some of the assumptions made by the author, there is a lot of value here for ANYONE involved in process improvement initiatives. In fact, I believe that some of the insights provided by this work are available in no other book on the subject - making this book indispensable for process improvement managers and consultants. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me - adamleft@webspan.net.

Only two reviews here?? This book precedes Ivar Jacobson's role in UML, so it may be slightly redundant today, but it is an excellent use cases book, and it still comes down from the shelf now and then.

Ok, so maybe the subject matter isn't the most riveting but I truly found this book so totally boring that I have never been able to finish it despite several attempts. Thankfully this book has been superseded by many other titles.