Product Description

The book provides a clear, practical framework for development that uses all the major techniques from UML 2.0. It follows an iterative and incremental approach based on the industry-standard Unified Process. It places systems analysis and design in the context of the whole systems lifecycle, and includes generic analysis and design issues. Two realistic case studies are used throughout the book - one for illustrative examples and the other for practical exercises for the reader. The book is structured in four parts, which can be flexibly combined to meet the needs of the syllabus. The first part provides the background to information systems analysis and design and to object-orientation. The second begins with two case study chapters, and focuses on the activities of requirements gathering and systems analysis, and the basic notation of the Unified Modelling Language (UML). The third part covers the activities of system design and UML notation for object design. The final part examines the later stages of the systems development lifecycle, reuse and software development methodologies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79446 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

From the Publisher
A new chapter on models, diagrams and the iterative life cycle
Two new Case Study chapters
Updated notation follows the latest version of the UML standard and reflects the most up-to-date approaches to the information systems development process
All chapters have been revised and updated to reflect developments in the world of object-oriented analysis and design

About the Author
Simon Bennett is a Systems Architect in the Corporate IT department of Celesio AG. He was previously at Ericsson Intracom, and prior to that a Principal Lecturer in the department of Information Systems at De Montfort University. He is one of the authors of Schaum’s Outline of UML 2nd edition, published by McGraw-Hill. Simon Bennett (Leicester, UK) is an information systems consultant with Ericsson Intracom Ltd., UK, where he specializes in knowledge management for engineering and Intranet development.

Steve McRobb is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Computing Sciences and Engineering at De Montfort University, Leicester. His main research interests are currently online privacy and the re-documentation of legacy systems in UML. He was previously Principal Administration Officer at the Yorkshire Dales National Park, responsible for the organisation’s IT strategy.

Ray Farmer is an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Engineering and Computing at Coventry University. His major research interests are in information systems analysis and design, and in particular, object technology. He has wide experience as a consultant on object-oriented analysis and design.

Customer Reviews

Shines a light on what can be a dull subject
The first few chapters of this book can be a little tedious, data gathering and countless case studies are not easy reading, but in comparison to other books on the subject the authors have made them as interesting as possible. The book is easy to understand and is fairly thorough in explanations. For anyone studying Information Systems or Systems Analysis then this is the quintessential book on the subject and probably the only book you'll need to buy.

Informative but boring.
I used this book for my first year at University. It gave me a good basic understanding of OO design and though I did find it quite informative the layout and language did not keep my attention for long, and I found myself struggling to keep up. A good introduction, but I think I'll try one of the other titles for better understanding and depth.

Completely lost the plot
It's a shame I cannot give this a negative star rating. This is a very disappointing book. It's title is very misleading and incorrect. If it was titled Object-Oriented Software Development, then I would have expected the contents of the book to be broadly along the lines that it is, and I would not have bought it.

However, the cover says Object-Oriented Systems Analysis and Design (adding as an afterthought, or so it seems, Using UML). Therein lies the problem, Analysis and Design is precisely that - analysis of software requirements (and I would include in this requirement capture) and design of software through the use of UML. I would expect to see everything to do with use cases, class diagrams and sequence or collaboration diagrams and I would expect to see how the UML model progresses through the stages. I did not see clear evidence of this, and the description of how the model changes is presented in a very weak manner. The example projects, I thought, were boring and half-hearted.

So why are there chapters on Human Computer Interaction and style guides (containing diagrams resembling Jackson Structured Design - its a UML book!). Data Management describing file systems and file organisation (i.e. how data is written to a disk file system - what for?). Relational Database design (someone has to know this, but is it relevant to software objects as to how static data is held). Sections on Implementation, Maintenance and reuse, User Guides, Training and Managing OO projects (What for?). Discussions on waterfall lifecycles without the same emphasis placed on OO lifecyles. These and other topics cover about half the book.

I found the 482 pages very boring, most of which is irrelevant to the topic of systems analysis and design.

This book even as an OO software development book could benefit from 60% of the text being removed and far more diagrams introduced. They seem to be writing for the sake of it. It is complete waffle in places. I do believe it is a book written by academics for academics and students and bears little resemblance to the world of real software development.

Excellent books, even if they are thin, are still purchased by students especially when they get exactly what they are looking for.