Customer Reviews

Practical Guide to Structured Systems Design (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have done software development and systems design for 30 years now, and if I had to pick the 5 best books this book would be one of them.
The principles that it contains, based on the original work by Yourdon and Constantine, are still valid today, no matter how different software development is now, compared to 30 years ago. Sure, "Structured Systems Design" by Yourdon and Constatine may be more complete, but this one is much more readable, so if you have to choose one I suggest to read this.

One last (and sad) observation is that in so many years I have met very few programmers who had read this book, or even who had any knowledge of basic concepts like coupling and cohesion.

This book, along with two others by the likes of Ed Yourdon and Larry Constantine, gave me tools I haved used regularly for nearly 30 years now. Today I am helping a younger colleague regain control of an out-of-control project by passing on to him some fundamental principles of system design that are outlined in this book. I came here to Amazon to see if this book was even still available. Now I'm going to suggest to my colleague that he return here and buy it before another day on the project "slips" by.

Nuff said.

I have been making my life (and my family's) as a programmer for more than 15 years, in three countries (Cuba, Spain and USA) and two languages (regular Spanish and bad English).
I read this book about 12-14 years ago, and it taught me more about programming than any other document. For the pleasure of do it, I translated it from English to Spanish, believe or not: hand written, after hours during several months, in the early 90s. I (believe) still have these papers and the book with me, regardless the many places, cities and countries where I have spent the last 12 years. I'll check when get home tonight. I'm working right now, and suddenly, this book came to my mind. So, I jumped into Amazon to search it and I liked to see the rate of the book and how another (intelligent) people wrote about it.

This is the best book I have ever read on program design. I have been using his structure charts ever since I learned the technique from the book about 10 years ago.

This book is 20+ years old, but is better than 99% of the current OOAD books. Every page is a gold-nugget of practical-real-world-wisdom that is still relevant today. The structured approach detail here is much more valuable and practical than OOAD.

After over 20 years of dealing with other people's programming messes, I can't think of a better book for programmers to learn how to write clear programs.

The sections on coupling and cohesion, are fundamental to structured design as well as object-oriented design.

If my comments aren't persuasive then consider those of structured design's creator, Larry Constantine, who said Meilir's book on this topic is better than his.

Yes, I would personally rate this as of the best book ever written on the subject of design.

I read this book many years ago and it inspired me to build robust systems and enjoy my career in Information Technology. I treasure this book. Even today, I can evaluate a design by applying basic principles outlined in this book.

This book is equal to the classic "The Mythical man-Month".

This is one of those books that INSPIRE you !!!!

This is the classic text about structured design. Consise, to the point, relevant, fun to read ... Too bad that there is nothing comparable for OOD or even for component based design. Buy it, read it every other year brouse in it every other week. One ot my favorites. I'd take it on an island.

The Structured Systems Design is a well-established methodology in software design which does not have a comparable counterpart in the OOP world.

***

This book of Meilir Page-Jones attempts to bring a rigorous presentation of structured design as well as a down-to-earth methodology suitable for direct use.

The book fails to deliver at high level on both counts.

A) As a theoretical presentation of the methodology, even the author admits that the classic in the field is the book by Yourdon and Constantine. Perhaps without this remark the reader can easily see that the rigor and sobriety usually abundant in such works is slim in this book.

For a practical guide, however, the level of rigor is not out of line.

B) As a pratical guide, the book extensively explains *WHAT*, but it fails to teach *HOW*.

For instance, the book spends a great deal in explaining what a good design is (a whole section of the book). But when it comes to how to construct a good design, it spends just a few poorly written pages on transform analysis (the main construction technique).

OBS: The huge advantage of the structured methodologies over OOP is that they are *rigorous*. They have rigorous specification techniques (structured analysis), rigorous methods of transforming the specs into design (transform analysis) and rigorous methods of transforming the design into code (structured programming).

"The Practical Guide to Structured Systems Design" fails to teach soundly these techniques.

The book is well structured. Sections I-III present what (good) structured design is. Section IV deals with a brief presentation of structured analysis.

Section V is the core of the book and, unfortunately, that's where the book is most weak. The section is named emphatically "Design Strategies" but in fact it shows just one "strategy": transaction analysis followed by transform analysis. The presentation is bad, cluttered with poorly chosen examples and misplaced figures (a figure referenced at some point may be placed actually two pages after the reference).

Sections VI and VII are simply mambo-jambo: pages filled with generalities about performance or project management with very little value for the actual performance engineer or project manager.

***

It is well known that writing a good practical guide in anything is very difficult since it is hard to find the right balance between theory and practice.

But, considering what it really delivers compared to its purpose, this book is grossly overrated and not of very much value for someone interested in the rigorous and systematic characteristics of structured design methodologies.

A real classic like Tom DeMarco's "Structured Analysis and System Specification". One of the top ten favorites in my bookshelf.