Customer Reviews

UML Toolkit (OMG)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When considering which UML book to buy it should be obvious that some complement each other depending on the skill level (novice, experienced) and background of the reader (student, software/embedded engineer, manager). However, having read more than 10 books on UML, I suggest that if you must only buy one book make it this one. There is no other book that real-time extensions, process for UML, design patterns, discussion on UML tools and a complete case study with implementation in Java. In addition, the accompanying CD amongst other things includes a demo version of Rational Rose 4.0. My only wish is that a second/updated version of the book comes out (covering UML 1.3, providing Rose 98i and correcting some of the inevitable mistakes that one finds in detailed books). END

I'm using this book as a text for an OO technologies graduate course, and while the book does indeed offer a good intro to the topic, it certainly has room for improvement. There are several errors and inconsistencies in the notation and examples. The book is based on UML 1.0, making it somewhat dated. I felt uneasy about many of the examples offered; many times they didn't seem to illustrate the language feature all that well. I find that I use the UML Notation Guide more so than this text. And the included Ration Rose trial version crashes with great regularity on a Win95 machine.

I picked up the book after reviewing the discussion on Use Cases. It's the best intro to the various diagrams I have seen. Big problem though, the symbols he uses doesn't match the latest UML specifications. Anyone that has glanced at UML knows there is a confusing amount of different ways to illustrate the relations between items on a diagram. Lines with open triangles at the end, diamonds (open and filled), and arrow heads intermixed with solid and dashed lines. Each with a differnt meaning. Well, the book gets it wrong. Specifically he keeps using the open triangle at the end of the line to signify things like instantiating templates. Go ... and download the UML spec. He also adds stereotypes that don't seem to exists ( "uses" ? ). Or rather I could find any other reference that talks about them. This would be a major problem if you decided to use a tool like Rose. Design tools like Rose attach certain meanings to different shapes. I find myself constantly rechecking and re-looking up symbols. There is a possibility that some of this stuff is undefine or optional in the UML spec, but I don't want to read an 800 page document to understand this 400 page book. So good discussion, bad applications/examples.

Try "The Unified Modeling Language User Guide" instead. Not as much discussion, but better accuracy.

I was expecting much from the reviews, but felt as I moved into the fifth chapter that the coherence of the presentation and thematic development was falling apart. I found it became too confusing for me given the time I have to study this.

I have been programming in C++ for while. However, whenever I implemented any of my ideas of my research as a C++ program (some are big and some are small) and tried to put down my implementation idea in a systematic manner that follows Object Oriented paradigm, I was finding it enormously difficult! But this book gave me thorough concept of different types of diagrams as described in UML. Now I think UML is the best thing ever happened among OO community. The users of a developer's software will have least difficulty in getting to know the software from his perspective. UML would not have been famous if books like this were not published! Believe me, this book helps you if you are lost in OO programming (but I would recommend readers to have knowledge about C++ or other OO languages before they start this book).

As professional with 14 yeras experiences, I recommend this book for everyone who have allready study the base of UML, and are looking for a guideline and a quick reference card.

As Project manager, I have read and study more than 30 books about UML.

For the first two projects, this book was for me very useful, because I serve it like a quick reference card for all the design tool, and as a guide line for the sequence of the phases (I followed the chapter 10, and the result was eloquent ! although today I have found a different one !)

More over the case study is one of the only one I have encounter in books which is ampler than a school case study.

I think the other comments are not very helpfull for who look for what is different in this book.

I wanted a book that summarized UML quickly and also functioned as a cookbook for all the diagramming techniques. This book filled the bill very nicely. I looked at several others and they were lacking on examples or implementation details. Some of these other books were smaller, and some larger. But, this book hit the sweetspot in coverage and readability. I gave this book a "10" rating because it is the best of the practical books that I have found so far on the complete UML approach. It's certainly not the best book that I've read this year... but for it's purpose of covering UML it is truly great. It's about 1 inch thick, includes lots of diagrams and examples, and is easy to read. I keep it handy to help me draw my entity-relationship type diagrams using the new UML formats. For those of you who don't know what UML is, it's the "Unified Modeling Language". It consolidates the previously competing approaches to systems analysis... particularly of Booch, Rumbaugh and Jacobson. They have now collaborated and standardized how you should analyze various types of software systems.

This book offers a good overall understanding of the UML. However the examples are shallow, and not necessarily on point or real world enough for me. I've read other books I would recommend before this one.

If you'r new to UML this would be a good start, although it may be a bit confusing to the beginner. If you have UML experience and are looking for greater depth of knowledge, look elsewhere.

Having read both Instant UML, and UML toolkit, found toolkit to add the most value in teaching fundamentals of UML design. The description of the processes, components and application to real business cases did not tax my brain too much. Instant UML much more suited as a reference book. Learning the art of designing object oriented business applications requires a robust methodology to relate business events to the OO architecture. UML provides a process flow from the use-case stage right through to the deployment stage to facilitate this process. Also a great productivity tool with DDL, C++, Java code generation functions.

Those who want an introduction of UML should read this boo