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UML: A Beginner's Guide

Format: Paperback
Author: Jason T. Roff
ReleaseDate: 19 December, 2002
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Rating:

Not recommended, not even for novice UML students
I had been looking for a book with exactly this title. I would like to have a higher opinion of this book. The author makes a solid effort to keep the tone light, and the examples used should be familiar to the widest possible audience. The book does have good points.

However, I disagree with the (many) reviewers who think that beginners are going to find this a clear path to understanding UML. I am making progress, but the pace is painful. There are several important problems with the presentation. First, the author is terribly casual about using technical terms that he has not yet defined. Second, the definitions, when they finally occur, are so light as to be unhelpful. Finally, in several places the author steps the reader through examples and carefully explains the sequence without ever specifying what determines the sequence. This is a common mistake by textbook authors, mistaking action for understanding.

Let me give a few examples. In chapter five, on Sequence Diagrams, under the heading "Define Sequence Diagrams", the first paragraph begins:

"The sequence diagram is one of two types of interaction diagrams.
The other is the collaboration diagram, which is covered in Module 7. "

Since "interaction diagrams" has not been defined, all we learn from the first two sentences is that "something we don't know about" is part of a category that we don't know about, which has one other component that we don't know about (but will learn about in two more chapters). This seems like a slow start to me, and is not untypical of the authors prose.

My second complaint is that the author is too casual in formuating his definitions. This is nowhere better illustrated than the author's contention that: "It might help to understand what a system is, defined in the context of UML. A system is something that does something. " (Admittedy, this is the worst that I've seen so far, but this author truly needs an editor who cares. )

My final complaint was that the author mistakes action for understanding. Any discussion of UML must solve genuinely difficult teaching problems. One is, how do you convey a sense of what object oriented programming is really about? Concepts like encapsulation, polymorphism and inheritance are very hard to convey. The author fails, singularly, to address these (and other) hard issues. Do the favorable reviewers really think that "Module 3. Introduction to Object Oriented Design" would convey even a small part of OOD to a novice? I would suggest that true novices pick up this book and look carefully at Module 3 in order to evaluate the text. If you feel you are getting a good introduction, then great. But if it seems opaque then don't count on other chapters for clarity.

Matters of definition, orderly presentation and clarity are important to students. I can not give this book a positive recommendation.

Dangerous book, very missleading
It's easy to follow and easy to learn from. The book is very consumable. For the new to UML reader it seems like such a relief to find a book that describes it so easy. This is where the problem starts, the book is simply incorrect in a lot of cases. Some examples below:

It describes the RUP as waterfall. Superimposing workflows on phases. The author thinks that the inception phase is analysis. This could essentially drive a project to failure. It's obvious the author has never successfully implemented RUP.

Some of the diagrams are wrong (i. e. The extension points are on the wrong use cases) and the emphasis on diagramming use cases instead of writing them is an obvious novice mistake.

Larman's Applying UML and Patterns is just as simple to read but is actually correct. Please at least review Larman's book before purchasing this terrible title.

Good Book to learn basic UML
It has come just at the right time for me as I seek to develop my career as a Business Analyst. I find this book an excellent hands-on tutorial to understand, read, draw, and use UML effectively. The effectiveness of system diagrams in analysis and design of a system is beyond any doubt. This book has helped me to understand the logic behind these diagrams and how to apply these in a system life cycle. I also like the progressive approach of the author.

This book explains in detail how to read, draw, and use this visual modeling language to create clear and effective design for software development projects. It also teaches object-oriented concepts and how they relate to software design and analysis. It also covers Object Constraint Language (OCL), which allows users to refine their UML diagrams. Although my quest is to apply UML techniques in web-based application, a topic not covered by this book, but since I am a novice so I was looking for a book that can help me understand the basics and this book has done just that.