Schaum's Outline of UML

This book explains the concepts of UML for someone who is looking to understand UML or needs a refresher.

Considering the pricetag of textbooks on this subject, this Schaum's outline is an excellent value. This is one of those Schaum's that has enough good narrative to stand alone as a textbook on a subject. The book takes the practical stance of involving two case studies throughout that serve as subject matter for the numerous examples. One is CarMatch, which is a franchising company promotes car sharing. The other is VolBank, which is a non-profit organization matching volunteers with people and groups needing help. This book covers version 2.0 of UML. The book provides a "How To" section in each chapter in whch examples are developed from one of the two case studies. The two case studies provide examples that cover business modeling, information system development, and real-time system development. The first two chapters of the book introduce the case studies and provide background to UML. The next twelve chapters explain the notation of UML diagrams and how to produce them. For each type of diagram there are sections on the notation, on how to produce the diagrams, on how each diagram is related to other diagrams, on how each diagram can be used in business modeling, and on how each diagram fits into the Unified Software Development Process. Each chapter has a set of review questions with answers at the back of the book, solved problems, and supplementary problems. Chapter 15 covers the ways in which UML can be extended. The final two chapters provide information on related topics: Software tools for UML and design patterns. The book concludes with a summary of UML notation, answer pointers for the review questions, the UML Metamodel architecture, a glossary, and a bibliography. The only thing missing from this book is more integration with tools such as Rational Rose, and more examples of coding from the UML. However, considering the price and the ground covered, I still consider this a five star book on the subject of UML.

When I wanted to learn C language, the second book I picked up was this same series on C [the first one being K & R, which I read later to comprehend]. This book on UML follows the same tradition of "Teach a concept then give plenty of exercises to practice what you learnt". It includes two case studies also. It also includes a chapter on Real time UML, another on OCL and another chapter on Design patterns. A very good buy for the money (16+ dollars). Pros: Excellent book for beginners Lots of exercises to practice what you learnt. This can be a first book to read before moving into heavy weights like UML series [from awl] or Booch series [from sigs]. Coverage of Object Constraint LanguageCons: May be taking a case tool like Rational Rose or TogetherJ for implementation, as a side-by-side treatment would have made this book more comprehensive.Overall I am very much satisfied with this book at a elementary level.