It helps understand the basics
It provide enough "life" examples to permit you to understand the basic. It is a great complement to maybe a college book that provides limited examples.
Great reference - but it is a reference
I am a software developer with 15 yrs experience, been a Java developer for the last 7. Never worked in a heavy UML environment but have been required to put together class diagrams and wanted to learn more about other UML features. This book is not a cookbook, a how-to, or a learning guide, so if you need to learn and use UML in a heavy-duty way this book is not the right one. However, this book is great as an overview and reference, and it allows me to speak intelligently about UML and understand diagrams. Certainly would recommend it for other developers who wish to have a working understanding of UML.
Only a reference guide
This book is just a reference guide for UML 2.0. Well categorized, small examples for each UML concept but nothing else. If you want to learn UML from scratch this is not the first book you want or even need to read. If you are a proficient UML designer you won't need it. If you are in the middle path this book can help you a little, when you forgot something specific for example. Although you can easily find the same information googling elsewhere.
I'm not telling you this is a waste of money. Just don't expect too much.
One of the Best UML Reference Books On the Market Today & Very Portable
When searching for a very good UML reference book last year, I happened upon the book entitled "UML 2.0 in a Nutshell" by Dan Pilone with Neil Pitman. The book, which measures a mere 8.9 by 6 by 0.8 inches, is both lightweight and highly portable; which is one of the reasons that I decided to purchase a copy. However, it was ultimately the content of the book, and not its compact size, that convinced to me that this would a very useful resource. Condensed within 216 pages, "UML 2.0 in a Nutshell" lives up to its title, as the book is an extremely informative resource in understanding the various graphical elements that comprise UML with its nine types of diagrams.
The book's 12 chapters and two appendices are divided into four main parts: an introduction, static diagrams, behavioral modeling diagrams and finally, extensions and applications of UML.
First Part: Introduction
chapter 1: Fundamentals of UML
This chapter provides a short, but good introduction to the fundamentals of UML. If you have never used UML before, this will help to introduce several key concepts of UML; but you might want to consider purchasing a UML tutorial book, such as "UML Weekend Crash Course" by Thomas A. Pender, to obtain a more hands-on approach to learning UML.
Second Part: Static Diagrams
Chapter 2: Class Diagrams
Class diagrams are one of the most important aspects of UML. With class diagrams, the relationships between classes can be thoroughly illustrated, including the strengths of the relationships between classes. This chapter provides a precise description of the various ways that class relationships can be defined within UML: dependencies, associations, aggregations, compositions and generalizations; as well as association classes. This chapter also discusses class members (variables & methods), whether a class might be abstract or an interface, and templates.
Chapter 3: Package Diagrams
Classes that are contained within a common package can be illustrated within UML using package diagrams. This chapter also includes relationships between packages and use case packages.
Chapter 4: Composite Structures
This chapter discusses composite structures that exist during runtime, including connectors and ports, as well as collaborations.
Chapter 5: Component Diagrams
Components (replaceable & executable pieces of a larger system whose implementations are usually hidden) can be used in UML as either a black-box or white-box view. This chapter discusses both uses.
Chapter 6: Deployment Diagrams
This chapter discusses how the deployment of an application (which may include many pieces) can be illustrated within UML, including artifact instances, manifestations, nodes, devices, execution environments and communication paths.
Third Part: Behavioral Modeling Diagrams
Chapter 7: Use Case Diagrams
This chapter documents how an actor (a person or another application) interacts with applications and their internal components.
Chapter 8: Statechart Diagrams
This chapter discusses the two types of state machines that can be described in UML: behavioral state machines and protocol state machines. This includes states, composite states, submachine states, transitions, activities, pseudo-states and event processing.
Chapter 9: Activity Diagrams
This chapter discusses how activities and actions are illustrated within UML, including activity edges, activity nodes, object nodes, control nodes and more advanced activity modeling: activity partitions, exception handling, expansion regions, looping, streaming, interruptible activities and data store nodes.
Chapter 10: Interaction Diagrams
How UML is able to illustrate interactions between objects is accomplished through interaction diagrams. This chapter discusses usage of interaction participants, messages, execution occurrences, state invariants, event occurrences, traces, combined fragments, interaction occurrences, decompositions, continuations, sequence timing, timing diagrams and communication diagrams.
Fourth Part: UML Extensions & Applications
Chapter 11: Tagged Values, Stereotypes and UML Profiles
This chapter discusses use of stereotypes, tagged values, constraints and UML profiles.
Chapter 12: Effective Diagramming
This chapter is essentially a "do" and "don't do" chapter that emphasizes the need to keep UML diagrams as simple as possible, though that is not always possible.
The two appendices: Appendix A is about MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) and Appendix B is about the object constraint language (OCL), which is an extension of UML 2.0.
Overall, I rate "UML 2.0 in a Nutshell" with 5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it to anyone learning and/or using UML on a regular or infrequent basis. I have yet to see a book as well written as this in explaining the many aspects of UML in as a concise & easy-to-understand form as "UML 2.0 in a Nutshell".
Excellent reference book
I bought this book recently to learn about the differences and new stuff included in this version of UML. I sincerely think this book was an excellent choice. The author describes each UML diagram in a focused way and in very simple words. I'm actually reading it and i am very pleased with this book. It fits all my expectations about a quick reference guide into the world of UML 2.0. Note this isn't a learning book about this language it's only like its title said UML 2.0 in a nutshell.
(14 reviews)
