Streamlined Object Modeling: Patterns, Rules, and Implementation (Paperback)

I'm very surprised at the low Amazon.com sales rank of such a unique, insightful, and practical book. With agile and "extreme" methods and practices all the rage you would think a streamlined, dare I say 'agile', approach to modeling would have recieved more attention. I suppose the publisher missed a great opportunity by not putting "Agile" somewhere in the title. Having been the XP 'evangelist' and coach on an XP project I think it even has a place in XP (though purists will argue that point). This is my biggest problem with XP - XP recommends coming up with a "metaphor" for an application which gives the project "conceptual integrity" and will allow the customer and programmers to communicate clearly about the application. In the famous C3 payroll system project the sytem was likened to a manufacturing line in which paychecks were 'assembled' from hour 'parts' and various other 'parts'. Sorry, it may have worked but it is overly contrived and not "the simplest thing that could possibly work and no simpler". The other problem is that Beck himself says that coming up with a useful metaphor cannot be taught and that he can only come up with one on half his projects. So what if, instead of racking your brain to come up with a useful metaphor, which you will only come up with 50% of the time at best, you used a simple-as-possible-but-no-simpler modeling approach to model the *actual* business domain? Wouldn't that model provide the necessary "conceptual integrity" for the system under development and allow the customer and programmers to communicate clearly about the system, and do so *directly*? In the C3 case, paychecks would be paychecks and hours would be hours. No translating back and forth between different domains. I understand the purpose of having a good metaphor - to capture and allow communication of the essential entities and of the essential relationships between those entities. But I think that creating a basic domain model, quickly and iteratively, by applying the patterns, rules and techniques in Streamlined Object Modeling, is a cleaner and more direct practice than metaphors and fits in fine with XP. And creating such a domain model is possible not just 50% of the time, but 100% of the time. (The authors do make certain suggestions and recommendations here and there reflecting their own methodology and implementation preferences which do not always jive with agile and, especially, XP practices. But those are easily identified and agile/XP practitioners should not allowed them to distract from the core of this work.)

In the interest of full disclosure I should state I know and have had the privilege of working with all three of the authors. They gave me an early draft and I did not read it. The book was published and they gave me a copy and I did not read it. Sorry, guys and gal! But finally, this past week, I got around to reading it. Fantastic piece of work. I just wish I would have read it sooner!

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It is both a philosphical and technical blueprint for the modeling process: forget use cases and such. This is about modeling the domain using twelve pattern players that, alone and in combination, describe virtually all domains. Twelve simple pieces that can be snapped together to make extremely complex models that are robust, resilient and extensible. Amazing stuff.

At 400 pages this is the perfect size book: there is no bloat...just a fortright exposition that well explained and diagramed. This isn't a book burdened with UML (I have a beginners guide to UML that is about the same thickness...UML has lost its way: it's become ridiculously bloated and cubersome and oh so self-important). This book helps your pare away the edifice of UML that adds major complexity to the modelign process and get down to the point of the exercise: modeling. Simple.

This book will give you a set of tools for analayzing domains efficiently: because you will permeate what it teaches you through all your domain analyses, which then make the process easier, quicker, and more effective and the net result will be better and stronger. Then you can layer as much UML on it as you like (UML is like butter, full of cholestorol that clogs the arteries). I guess you could call the tools it teaches you- Rapid Modeling.

This is a good book. Try it and find out. Definintely 5 stars.

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When I discovered Peter Coad's Object Modeling in Color book (ISBN 013011510X), where I was introduced to his "domain neutral component" (DNC), I had an epiphany. Then, after experiencing the fractal application of the DNC, I started to notice the patterns that Nicola, Mayfield, and Abney lay down quite nicely. It is a natural maturation of thought from Coad's DNC; Coad himself even acknowledges the importance of the book.

If you want to become a good object oriented analyst, read this book, then read it again. If you think you're a good object oriented analyst, read this book, then read it again. In either case, after applying the principles described, I think you'll wonder how you ever got along without them.

Kudos to Nicola, Mayfield, and Abney for an intellectual milestone in object oriented technology. I wish someone had handed this book to me when I first started working with object oriented languages.

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