Use Cases Combined with Booch/OMT/UML: Process and Products [With *]

by Charles B. Williams and Putnam P. Texel

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) gives you a chance to create a wide variety of software-engineering documents, but what are the steps required to build successful, even military-quality, software?... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 013727405X
• ISBN13: 9780137274055
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 2.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.3" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Apt for Intermediate OO designers

Definitely not for novice developers, this book presents a respectable starting point for OOAD practices. Though some text/techniques did look dated; the approach, deliverables, phases were well covered and can definitely be used for mid-sized OO projects. The phases are well-explained alongwith important elements like pragmatic issues, entry-exit criteria.For those attempting to bring more structure to their development process, this book's utility can be enhanced with knowledge of design patterns, and previous OOAD experience. One can certainly modify / improve the various deliverables covered in the book to their own needs. I do wish for a better title and singular focus on UML, now that it is a standard. The code listings can surely be reduced and made more up-to-date. Some basic Java dev guidelines (like package names in lowercase) have been ignored.

Excellent Overview of OO Projects From Start to Finish.

I agree with Bruce Arbuckle that this is an excellent book, and also that the title is somewhat misleading. The feature that drain@yahoo.com from Los Angeles, California complained about ("The rest of the book is full of home-brewed project duties and diagramming (CCDs, CCCDs, STDs, PID! s, PADs, & CIDs") I found to be an asset! Whether you are a veteran OO developer or manager, or a novice at OOA/OOD there is plenty here to borrow and put to use in developing your own style and methodology. Rarely is a complex subject like this covered so thoroughly and with such attention to detail.Textel and Williams provide a cookbook which can be followed to the letter, or which you can modify to satisfy your own OO sensibilities. I particularly found the continual contrasting and comparing of Booch, OMT, and UML to be interesting and edifying. The Project Management spreadsheet was an unexpected bonus. By following the phases described in this book step by step, producing the recommended deliverables, and using the review items for each phase, anyone with half a brain could successfully manage an OO project -- even someone in management! :-)

Excellent book - wrong title!

The title of this book appears to be misleading. It really discusses an approach or "SLDC" process for OO. This should be apparent to anyone that looks at the cover because the "side bar" states what it covers. The Preface also states that it presents a framework for OO methodologies. For organizations new to OO, this book provides an excelent "how to". You can even take the inside cover and put in a project tool like MS project! As the authors state, it is like a cook book and after you try it, you can modify the recipe to suite your environment. The structure of the book is excellent. The information was very well presented. I highly recommend this book.

Excellent

This book provides an excellent cook book process for large scale software development projects.

Suggested reading if you're looking for a process.

If you are experienced in OO methods, but have not applied it in a formal process, you must read this book. The authors clearly explain how to get from the user's initial wishes to final delivery. While many books outline the steps to take, the authors have done an excellent job of telling you how to do it, what to look for, what to avoid, and most importantly, what you'll have at the end of each phase and how to move to the next. Like the book's title says, you can use UML, Booch, or OMT as your method. The case study developed throughout the book makes use of all three as well as C++, Java, and Ada. If you happen to use some other methodology and/or programming language, the process is flexible enough to accommodate it- though the one method upon which the whole process depends are Use Cases. However, the book isn't perfect. For example, patterns are buried deep inside the process. I would have liked the authors to give patterns a more prominent role, though if you're familiar with patterns and OOA/D, you should be able to integrate it with this process. For example, an existing pattern could be researched and treated as an existing document. Another downside was its treatment of iterations. While there was great fanfare at the beginning of the book with regards to iterative development, the authors could have concentrated on showing how an iterative phase fits within the entire plan. Perhaps it was there all along and I just failed to let it sink in. But other concepts were loud and clear through out the book. As a project manager, I appreciate the advantages of an iterative approach to development. Laying out such a task in a project plan requires a really good understanding not of how it works but how it fits. What would I like to see in a second edition? Not much, more prominent treatment of patterns, a more lucid explanation of how iterations work, perhaps generate some software metrics, all topics any decent development manager should be able to integrate. I recommend this book, even if you already have or use a process. The author's approach to requirements engineering alone is worth the price of the book.