A Definitive Source about UML

UML Bible
Tom Pender
John Wiley & Sons
2003
ISBN 0-7645-2604-9
984 pp., US$49.99

Aimed primarily at professionals with some object-orientation or Unified Modeling Language experience, this book is also useful for programmers, software engineers, and project leaders who want to get practical knowledge about UML.

Because this instructive book exposes the essential differences between UML 1.x and UML 2.0, it will help modelers make the transition to the most recent version. Not only can beginners learn basic concepts about UML through this book, but skilled professionals will also have an opportunity to apply the Object Constraint Language with action semantics, understand XML Model Interchange, customize UML using profiles, and, of course, learn what’s new in the latest UML specification.

Reliable coverage of all aspects regarding UML

The first part of the book, naturally, is a must-read for people without any knowledge of UML or OO design. The core of the book, chapters 5 through 17, explains:

*   Modeling Object Structure: classes, attributes, operations, associations, objects, links, inheritance, and patterns

*   Modeling Object Interactions: messages, events, and states

*   Modeling Object Behavior: use cases, actors, dependencies, activities, decisions, object flow, and partitions

*   Modeling the Application Architecture: packages, components, artifacts, nodes, interfaces, and ports

These well-written chapters provide substantial insight for both inexperienced and experienced professionals.

The final five chapters are more useful to advanced readers. For example, you’ll read about extending UML to a particular platform or modeling domain. A UML 1.4 Notation Guide, a UML 2.0 Notation Guide, an appendix of standard elements, a glossary, and an index are also included.

As a whole, I liked the book's organization: readers will find it easy to gain a thorough understanding of modeling an application (a ticketing system). I also appreciated the gray shading employed in some diagrams to identify main differences between the two UML versions.

The book has a related Web site offering the complete set of diagrams for the case study in PDF format. Other useful resources include links to commercial and free UML tools and executable UML, as well as to the UML standard, conferences, forums, tips, and tutorials.

A new edition is always welcome

The author can make a lot of improvements in the next edition. He could include more than one modeling application (for example, flight reservation, robot arm, customer service, car design, and so forth); end-of-chapter exercises; references to books, articles, and papers; and examples of how to translate (and also reverse) an executable UML model to source code (C, C++, Java, and so forth). If he adds all this, the book should become a best seller in the technical community.

Another reason to issue a new edition is that the book doesn’t contain the definitive description of the UML 2.0 specification, because it’s just being finalized (sometime in the middle of 2004).

A worthwhile book

UML Bible is a great book for anyone who’d like to have a solid knowledge about UML modeling and understand the significant changes between the 1.4 and 2.0 specifications. It also has an attractive price—just under US$50 for a book of more than 900 pages.

Wilson Pardi Jr. is a software/hardware engineer at Toshiba Machine Co. and a researcher at Tokyo Denki University in Japan. Contact him at wilsonjr@ieee.org.