Customer Reviews

Object-Oriented Analysis (Yourdon Press Computing Series)

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I've used it for a couple of years in a three-day introductory courses about OOA/D and the 'students' found it easy to learn. It's good because it softly introduces to the concepts of object orientation keeping in mind the fact that many people worked for years in a 'functional' way. Also good because you can use it every day while making analysis. In fact it's a manual. The two examples (one about an airline system and another about vehicle categorization) are developed together with the various aspects of the methodology and this helps to understand how to apply it. It's good also because it clearly separates analysis from design concerns. Of course now shows its age, but can be a good introductory book.

This book is one of the classics on the subject. Coad and Yourdon have been among the pioneers on OO methodologies, and their one is a well respected account.
What they provide is a complete methodology that covers all the software engineering phases, from analysis (with this book) to implementation (their OOP book).
You'll find that specialized magazines routinely presents articles that compares various methodologies. In each of them you'll always find Coad-Yourdon one. For this reason, despite the book is a bit old-dated, it worths a read and, indeed, it can be easily red. You'll gain a better understanding of the modern OO literature, and some insights that are timeless.

This interesting little book has now been out for twenty years. I've owned my copy for perhaps eighteen of those years. And it is interesting now to evaluate the promise suggested in this work's premise relative to the reality of the past twenty years. It is important, as well, to evaluate objectively, if I can be forgiven a slight pun, the methodology taught within the corpus of this text relative to the praxis that has emerged over the many years since its publication.

Published in 1990, Coad and Yourdon's book, here reviewed, presented a reasonable little methodology for performing object oriented analysis. What is striking today from the perspective of a professional in the field is how heavily what is presented as object oriented analysis in this work truly relies on sound principles of relational data analysis. In fact, their model of a five level schema for analysis, which would include subject, class and object, generalization/specialization, attributes, and methods/services could rightly be seen as having been completely addressed and much better dealt with in Fleming and Von Halle's classic "Handbook of Relational Database Design". The difference is that Fleming and Von Halle provided a sound methodology, well reasoned, and applicable then as now. Coad and Yourdon struggled to present something entirely different. But all they really accomplished is to validate the work earlier performed by the insightful ladies, mentioned above, who fashioned their excellent work on the sound and unimpeachable teachings of the late, great Dr. Codd.

Witness today the efficacy of the CASE tools Coad and Yourdon suggest for Object Oriented Analysis: Object Oriented Environment, OOA Tool, ObjectPlus, Adagen. Are any of these tools now market leaders? Are they even still around today? What has become of the object oriented databases the authors touted back in 1990? These included Nexpert Object, Gemstone, and Postgres. What market fate has met these technologies? And yet, DB/2 and Oracle, among other technologies supported by Fleming and Von Halle back in 1989 roll on even today. In addition, of course, ER/Win stands today as the corporate standard for data analysis. And this validates the most important truth of all: Data analysis in corporate America today proceeds from a relational paradigm. And so it will for at least the foreseeable future.

Relative to the promise and reality of the object oriented methods presented in this book, I would say now, twenty years later, that they mainly served to validate the importance of relational technology and technique. The book is useful simply because it leads the informed reader to this very important conclusion, whilst enabling him or her to converse effectively with those who continue to imbibe the objected oriented kool-aid.

This is the essence of object oriented analysis, encompassing all aspects of the topic. I wholeheartedly recommend it to programmers of all levels.

This is one of my favorite books. It was the first book that ever really explained OO in an understandable and compelling way! Peter Coad offers an excellent, real world approach to modelling using Object Oriented Analysis. This book optimally fits in with the rest of the series (OOA & OOP) but serves as a stand-alone as well. The book serves as an excellent resource for Software engineers