UML Weekend Crash Course [With CDROM]

A number of books have been written about the "Unified Modeling Language" (UML), but few are as easy to understand as the 2002 book "UML Weekend Crash Course" by Thomas A. Pender. Intended to be read over the course of a weekend (beginning on a Friday evening and ending on the following Sunday afternoon), the book is divided into six parts based upon time: Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. Now, just because the author intended that someone would be able to completely read the book over the course of a single weekend doesn't obligate any reader to do that. However, the reader should expect to obtain at least a basic understanding of the fundamental diagrams used in UML: use case diagrams, activity diagrams, class diagrams, object diagrams, sequence diagrams, collaboration diagrams, package diagrams, component diagrams and deployment diagrams. Of these, probably the most important are the use case diagrams, activity diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams and package diagrams. Though the author points out that UML diagrams can be done by hand, anyone who needs to use UML diagrams should use a software package to simplify their construction and storage because UML diagrams can become rather complex and may require periodic changes, especially when being used to design a new software application. Though there are a number of commercial applications available for UML design, there are also free UML design packages available for download from the Internet, including a few that are used interactively within software IDE's. (The latter may also have auto-code generation.) As with any software language or modeling tool, it takes time to learn UML. In my opinion, the book "UML Weekend Crash Course" will accelerate that learning process, but you will no doubt require other UML resources (books & software), as well as experience. If you need to learn UML quickly, then I highly recommend this book, which I rate with 5 out of 5 stars. As an experienced software engineer, this book was an invaluable tool for learning UML and continues to be a useful reference.

During the last 4 years I has been doing a lot of UML trainings, so I have read and used multiple UML books. This one outbeats all others by its reader-friendly style, comprehensive examples and explanations of various UML techniques (you won't find these in other UML books). It is not bulky but contains everything UML starter or even intermediate user would need: the book not only outlines UML notation but also presents quiz at the end of each section to test your knowledge, as well as web application case study and guidelines on choosing UML tool. And yes, one can really make it in one weekend! Now I'm recommending UML Weekend Crash Course to all my students who wish to get up to speed in UML quickly and efficiently. This book is an excellent choice both for class and self-training.

Highly recommend. As a UML newbie I needed to learn concrete and specific guidelines about how and when to use the diagrams UML provide; and the book just does that. It helps you build your knowlegde from zero to a fairly basic level, but you'll still need more books and practice to take to UML expert level. Nevertheless if you're looking for an easy yet useful way to get up to speed with UML, I recomend this book.

The great book to get started with UML! Tom Pender's UML Weekend Crash Course is very readable and it is much more easy to understand than other books on UML I have read. It covers fundamentals of UML principles, is comprehensive and clear. The example that is used throughout the book works well to demonstrate each section concepts. You will be able to use UML after you complete this book.We are one of the major UML tool vendors, and we were looking for a book to recommend as additional reading for our UML courses. Recently we got UML Weekend Crash Course, and it made very nice impression for us. Our company has decided to provide this book for our teaching courses listeners as the most suitable to learn UML fundamentals.

This book hits on all the UML fundamentals and will make more indepth books (the Addison-Wesley books by 3 the amigos and others) more accessible to you.The examples in this book were clear and easy to relate to. If you have a CASE tool by your side when you read this, you'll get the most out of the book. You're going to need to get familiar with such a tool if you want to put UML to work for your projects.The CD that ships with the book comes with Popkin's System Architect and Embarcadero's Describe.I installed Popkin's tool as most of the examples in the book were created with it. This tool was easy to use and had an excellent tutorial of its own on UML.This book is a great tool kit for the beginner and a good refresher course for the more experienced.