Browse Books

Reviewer: Olivier Louis Marie Lecarme

This is the third book on UML that I have reviewed, and the first I can recommend. It consists of three parts, comprising 15 chapters and three appendices, as well as a glossary, a bibliography, and an index, all of which are comprehensive. Each of the chapters ends with exercises, and answers are provided for almost all of them. All in all, this book feels as though the utmost care has gone into its preparation, writing, editing, and printing. The first part is a concise and pleasant-to-read introduction to object orientation, in two chapters. From the beginning, this introduction demonstrates one of the most appealing characteristics of this book, namely, its witty, crisp, and convincing style. Using daily life comparisons, quiet jokes, illuminating examples, and good humor, the author manages to make everything he presents self-evident and perfectly clear. The same qualities are demonstrated in the five chapters of the second part, which presents the Unified Modeling Language (UML). At last, I have found a description of UML that is not boring or dull, but enthralling and perfectly clear. A quotation by Stan Kelly-Bootle on the back cover explains this much better than I could: “A real tour de force. Page-Jones manages with rare warmth and wit to combine academic precision and practical help for all those facing the complex challenges of software design and development in the 21st century.” The third part, in eight chapters, deals with the principles of object-oriented design, the main subject of the book. UML is used throughout this part, but since it has been introduced well in the second part, there is no confusion between the topic of this part and the tool used to present it. Part 3 has the same virtues as the two preceding parts. More important, it is clear throughout the book that the author is able to explain so clearly because he knows his material perfectly. This stand s in contrast with too many authors, who write about some subject only because it is the most recent fad, and thus present a subject they have not fully mastered. These writers are thus unconvincing and boring, to say the least. The exact opposite is true of this book, and I recommend it without any reservations.