Craig Larman did a splendid job simplifying UML. I bought this book along with the official UML user guide and I prefer reading this book because of how it made UML look so easy. What's so impressive about this book is that the author stays with one example throughout the book, and clearly illustrates the relationships and dependencies amongst different UML diagrams and artifacts. He even shows you how to map the diagrams to actual Java code! Larman's explanations of the different design patterns is also invaluable. I haven't heard of design patterns before, and this book helped me have a deeper appreciation of patterns to create better object-oriented software.

After having read several UML and object oriented analysis books, I was still lacking something in my area of how to go about a OOA project with UML. I was new to both UML and OOA, so I had some big hurdles to climb. This book helped put the various pieces together that I needed.

The example project that Larman builds throughout the book is a very nice approach. The chapters are layed out in a nice logical sequential order that enabled me to build my own project right along with the order of the book.

You won't want to make this your primary UML book, but as a book that brings it all together it's very helpful.

I thought Larman was an excellent book on the APPLICATION of UML and patterns in the real world. I was really impressed with the discussion of project life cycle issues related to OO - this contains first rate advice and is, above all, the reason I give this book 5 stars. This book gives a very practical approach to applying OO using UML and patterns.

You need to read this book cover to cover to get the most out of it. One look at the contents page will show you that it's not the best UML reference book or book on patterns. If that's what you want then look elsewhere.

Some reviewers here treat this book as unworthy of software professionals. Hmmm. Well, chaps ... it sure ain't for beginners. I've been working with distributed OO systems since the late 80s, have read practically every popular book on OO, OMT, Booch and UML and this is one of the most useful I've read.

Get a good book on patterns (something more readable than GoF but get GoF too!), a good UML primer ('UML Distilled' and 'Using UML', maybe) and Larman. Read Larman first to give you a sense of context and the others just to get a better handle on the nuts and bolts of UML/Patterns. Larman offers wisdom and will help you get more out of the other tomes. Most other books in this area merely offer knowledge and examples. Larman gives you a framework with which to get the most out of UML and patterns.

Craig Larman provides the reader with simple, easy-to-follow examples of UML and pattern application, with few deep theoretical or philisophical discussions of development process. This style offers the new user of UML a good guide to applied modeling concepts, without bogging he/she down in academic arguments. If you are going to buy a single book to learn UML, I highly recommend this one, as it goes beyond simply describing the notation, and illustrates its use through simple guidelines. Other books are necessary to fully understand the complexities of UML, patterns, and design process, but this one fills a huge gap for the beginner market.

I've read this book carefully in parallel with RUP, UML user guide, UML distled, and "Writing Effective Use Cases" book. Many mistakes in examples, that is not obvious for novice: For example, "dbms support" is related to functional requirements (system functions). It's not true, but, of course, I understand what author mean: "rdbms read/write/update functions". The book is named as: "Applying patterns with UML".

All potential readers! Please notice, that patterns doesn't depends on modeling language. You can use Booch or Omt notion as well (it's not essential for proffessional very much, because the basis is the same). And all in all if you want to learn patterns, than try to read Erich Gamma, that provides a good analysis in his book.

Additionaly there is a lot of pages, but information quantity is very small. It's easy to read 100 pages within 4 hours and all book within a 2 days. A lot of repeatable pictures sizes the book much. I think, that author can place all usefull information within 100 pages (without any lost of information).

No repetire lo que ya se ha escrito alrededor de este libro, otorgo 4 estrellas debido a la sencilla y en algunos casos pobre presentación de las figuras y/o cuadros ( no diagramas ) con que cuenta el libro, así que quienes buscan un libro ilustrado atractivamente, este no es uno de ellos, de hecho en mi opinión es bastante feo.

Con todo y lo anterior, es de lectura obligada para quienes deseen formalizar sus conocimientos de AOO y DOO utilizando UML, el autor demuestra su dominio en la materia a lo largo del libro y eso le valio un lugar en la primera repisa de mi librero.

Asi que ya lo saben.

This is one of my MOST favorite books. I always have it on my table whenever I am working on the design and analysis phase of the development. I'll strongly recommend it to anyone sincerely wish to understand the concepts of OOD, UML and design patterns, and particularly applying the design patterns. Craig Larman is a master author, he makes everything easy and straightforward to follow as if he could understand the mind of the reader. This book is definitely a MUST HAVE.

This book started me off in the right direction many years ago. When Grady Booch was espousing starting off with noun lists and static models and then creating the dynamic models and reconciling them against the static model ad infinitum, Larman proposed starting with the dynamic models and letting the static model flow from there. Following Larman's approach you will design software that directly solves the problem, not a huge object framework that is usually outdated before it even gets completed. Flowing directly from the use cases, this methodology is a natural step towards service oriented architectures. And it's a very clear tutorial on UML to boot.

My preferred book for Object Oriented Analysis and UML language, very comprehensive, very clear, nice examples

Eine sehr systematische Einfuehrung in die Methodik und den Ablauf objektorientierter Softwareentwicklung. Im Vergleich zu anderen Buechern sehr praxisnah, und mit einem guten Beispiel, das im Rahmen eines incrementellen Entwicklungszyklus verfeinert wurde. Die Gliederung ist sehr klar und durchschaubar. Der Autor legt vor allem Wert auf saubere Software-Architektur, und gibt mit seinen GRASP-Patterns wertvolle Hilfestellung. Insgesamt sehr empfehlenswert, ich habe fuer mein Team gleich weitere Exemplare gekauft.