Head First Design Patterns

UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language, Third Edition

Head First Java, 2nd Edition

Core J2EE Patterns: Best Practices and Design Strategies, Second Edition

Uml

UML for Java Programmers

Format: Paperback
Author: Robert C. Martin
ReleaseDate: 27 May, 2003
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Rating:

Get any UML Tutorial from the web instead of this book
I just got the book today. Oh! Come on. What is this? Chapter 5, very important part of UML titled "Use cases", has only 3 pages with a single image of "System boundary diagram"!!! Is this that really matters in the Use cases? For haven sake! I run out of words to explain the quality of this book. Book is total disaster. Chapter 6, OOD, 20 pages, 6 subchapters, Single Responsibility Principle, etc. Who cares about RSP, OCP, LSP, DIP, ISP. Why whould this be more important than Activity diagrams explained in details with numerous examples.

What is this book about anyway. Skipping detailed explanation of use cases or of activity diagram or numerous important items in the UML world while providing me chapter about OOD, Iterative Development (3 pages), Planning.

Then again State and FSM diagrams only 7 or 10 pages. Why is this called an UML book?

Average free tutorial on UML is much better than this. Just go to google, IBM developer works, Borland community, wherever and get a decent UML introduction.

Is this some kind of a joke? I wonder who could rate this book so high, 4 stars in average! And what does give this book a "Java" in title? Perhaps several interfaces written in java? Wow! How about making an C++ edition, with cca 240 pages as well.

Oh come on, close this page about this book, go home, go to some other UML book. If only I had a chance to find and see a free preview of this book I would have never bought it.

Look for the free sample of excerpt of the book first somewhere on the web, ed2k, wherever, before buying it. - I would never have bought it. .

A breath of fresh air
One of the team members convinced the management that we needed CASE tools. Years ago I was working on a very complex project. After spending $$$ on them and countless hours learning them, we began to use them. I soon became convinced that they provided little to help the process and in the end, they nearly sunk the project. It was yet another pseudo code that did little to aid in the process of generating real code. So when UML came on the scene, knowing it's roots I was very suspicious. After looking more into it, I was pleasantly surprised by UML. I believe that most of my objections to CASE were addressed, but not all. I found that too many had simply replaced one dead weight with another. Again countless hours were spent generating documents that no one ever read or cared about. Yet UML was a valuable tool, why was this so? I shared this with my grown son who directed me to Martin's book, and it became clear that a valuable tool was simply being misused. It is obvious that Martin has been in the real world and knows when to use a tool like UML, how much to use it, and what it is best suited for. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water as I was tempted to do, Martin points out that UML is a good communication tool best used at a white board with a small team. Once everyone is on the same page, the team can proceed as a team. Martin doesn't over burden you with a lot of useless diagrams. He poses a problem, shows how UML addresses a design issue, and shows you the resultant design change. I subscribe to many of the XP techniques because I have used them and found them useful with the exception of pair programming which I did for a while and found it to reduce the productivity to the lowest common denominator between the pair. I highly recommend this book.

Uncle Bob Could Have Done Better
Sadly, Uncle Bob's advice to write your UML on a napkin and later throw it away is not what we need. A book with this title is much needed. He is so flippant about UML that he comes across as arrogant and having much less credibility than he probably deserves. My advice to Uncle Bob: adopt a more humble attitude that will better serve your readers and write your second edition with a focus on accomplishing what the attractive title promises.