Oracle8 Design Using UML Object Modeling

This was the first book ever written on UML data modeling. It was (and continues to be) an outstanding effort. I am struck by the fact that the reviews that say bad things about this book are unsigned and useless while the reviews that praise the book are detailed, insightful and by people well known in the Oracle world. This is an EXCELLENT book. It is clear, to the point and is a great book on data modeling (even without the UML). Anyone seriously interested in UML data modeling should have this book.

Even though this book says it is about Oracle, it really is useful for many other databases (like the Informix we use). The writing is very engaging and understandable. The topics covered do a very good job of explaining how to map ER diagrams into UML.I was particularly pleased with the practical tips presented.

Personally I enjoyed this book a lot. It advocates much which is sensible and useful such as a single logical and physical model, as well as demonstrating many useful and practical modeling patterns. I thought that the piece on use of inheritance was weak and I mark it down for that. Otherwise, it teaches many of the best OO approaches for modeling using composition, role players and gives an excellent explanation of how to do time related modeling and versioning. An ideal book for reconciling traditional db design with modern java development.

I am often disappointed with technical books because they lack the practical advice that I need to get my job done. This is definitely not the case with Dorsey and Hudicka's book on Oracle 8 Object modeling with UML.The authors have provided Oracle Developers and modelers with a book that addressees not only the background and issues associated with object and object-relational modeling but suggests numerous ways to incorporate these concepts into your application designs.The book provides an excellent introduction to the world of relational and object-relational design. There is an appropriate amount of material in the beginning of the book to bring you up to speed if you are not familiar with relational modeling concepts (which most of us are) and object modeling concepts using UML (which most of us aren't). If you have to learn one object notation methodology, UML (Unified Modeling Language) is the one you should learn. A chapter on UML introduces you using the notation, which is then used throughout remainder of the book.These basic concepts are then quickly built upon . The authors next walk you through basic object database construction looking at such key concepts as class/entity definitions, logical and physical naming conventions and dealing with domains and list of values.These concepts are further extended to examine the relationships between entities and classes. More advanced concepts like recursive structures, cyclical structures and N-ary relationships are explained in detail with working examples to show you how to put these concepts into action.The last section of the book deals with more advanced concepts like the ability to handle time-related relationships along with mechanisms for making your models more generic, implementing business rules and denormalizations.The authors have put a lot of thought and hard work into the organization of the text and the topics are well explained. The examples used throughout the book are the icing on the cake that helped me understand the concepts. If you are a serious Oracle developer that is just moving into object-relational modeling, this book will definitely play an important part in teaching you the necessary concepts and approaches to be taken in your Oracle8 applications.

Contrary to what tool vendors may be saying, UML is difficult. This book goes along way into clearly explaining those difficult concepts and then applying them to practical application. It is, as the title indicates very Oracle centric, but would be worth while reading even for non Oracle people because of the way UML concepts are presented. Of particular note is the chapter on Composition and Aggregation, two UML concepts which have been left open for interpertation. The authors present their precise definition of the concepts and present it can be clearly understood and applied. This treatment alone make the book worth while. I also found the toe to toe comparative analysis UML vs. traditional ERD displayed throughout the book, to be compeling. The authors do take the liberty of expressing their own opinion of how things should be done and I found myself in agreement on some issues and disgreeing on others. (e.g. I agreed with the notion that recursive relationships are extremely useful and powerful structures. Yet, I found it it difficult to agree that logical and physical models should be merged.) Never the less opinions in the book are clearly marked as such. Whether you agree or not, does not detract from the crystalization of UML concepts and the illustrative examples. The authors comendably are not shy to point out when approriate, that UML diagrams are often imprecise, and they offer methods to improve precision when opportune. The book is an excellent complement to David Anstey's High Performance Oracle 8 Object-Oriented Design which tackels the big picture and concentrates on Oracle 8 itself, whereas this book concentrates on the the application of UML to Oracle 8.