- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press; illustrated edition edition (18 Nov 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0521525470
- ISBN-13: 978-0521525473
- Product Dimensions: 16.7 x 13.1 x 0.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,456,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Just as Strunk & White's The Elements of Style provides rules of usage for writing in English, this text furnishes a set of rules for modeling in the Unified Modeling Language." IEEE Computer
Product Description
The Elements of UML Style is for all developers who create models using the Unified Modeling Language (UML), especially in teams where understandability and consistency are critical. The author describes a collection of standards and guidelines for creating effective UML diagrams that will be concise and easy to understand. This book provides conventions for: • Class diagrams • Use case diagrams • Sequence diagrams • Activity diagrams • State chart diagrams • Collaboration diagrams • Deployment diagrams • Component diagrams The Elements of UML Style sets the rules for style that will improve your productivity.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
One of Agile Modeling's (AM) (Ambler 2002) practices is Apply Modeling Standards, the modeling version of eXtreme Programming (XP)'s Coding Standards (Beck 2000). Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
One of Agile Modeling's (AM) (Ambler 2002) practices is Apply Modeling Standards, the modeling version of eXtreme Programming (XP)'s Coding Standards (Beck 2000). Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Like Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" for writers (which it flatters by imitation), or Edward Tufte's "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" for statisticians, this book is destined to become a "bible" for those using the Unified Modelling Language.
Like those other books, it combines a sound set of standards for the experienced user with good guidance for those with less advanced skills. The focus is clearly on how to get the message across most efficiently and effectively, by understanding what you should leave out just as much as what you should include.
In just over 120 bite-sized pages Scott takes you through each of the main techniques in UML, identifying why you might want to use each one, how to draw the diagrams, how to construct names and descriptive text, with a number of clear "dos" and "don'ts" for each technique. It's bang up to date, covering most of the new diagram types in UML 2.0 as well as the latest conventions for the more established diagram types. The writing and examples are concise, so that you can read much of the book at a single sitting, but always complete enough that you fully understand.
The book also teaches by example the tenets of Agile Modeling, the idea that models should be just good enough, no more than necessary, and that the set of models held and maintained by a project should be the minimum sufficient, so that the project can "travel light" and adapt easily to change.
This is not a book for the novice. It assumes you know the rudiments of UML, how and why you should be using it, although Scott does provide an extensive set of useful references to introductory and more detailed sources as required. Similarly although the Agile Modeling approach is introduced and demonstrated in some of the examples, you are going to have to read Scott's more detailed books and articles to fully understand it.
Inevitably, by focusing on the example of "The Elements of Style" and what is absolutely necessary, some things have to be omitted. The book covers only the graphical elements of UML, not the textual elements which support them. I would like to have seen at least a standard Use Case template, but overall the decisions are very sound.
I suspect this book will become one of my main reference sources, since it covers much of what I need in daily modelling activities, in a format which makes it easy to carry around. You may decide the same.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a very neat book in pocket-sized format. It won't teach you the UML if you don't already know it, but it does give you strong guidelines on how to create UML diagrams that clearly convey information to the reader.
If you spend more of your time modelling than coding then this book is top value for money - and won't take up much desk space. If you are developing your own UML style guidelines then save yourself a lot of time - this book condenses a lot of knowledge into its tiny volume.
There is a discernable influence from the author's previous work, e.g. on Agile Modelling, however you don't need to have bought into this philosophy to gain practical benefits from the author's considerable modelling experience.
Less useful for beginners and hard core programmers, excellent value for designers, modellers and architects.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
A long needed guide
28 Jan 2003
Format:Paperback
There are two people I look to for information about UML: Martin Fowler (noteably: UML Distilled), and Scott Ambler.
With this book all the pieces are there. "UML Distilled" tells us how to use UML, "Agile Modeling" tells us how to use it in an agile way, and now "The Elements of UML Style" tells us how to use it so that the results look good and are understandable.
Physically, it's a nice book. Small and thin, it packs well, and will fit easily into the most overstuffed briefcase or backpack.
The format is good as well. Organized around the different diagrams, with extras for general guidelines and a quick overview of Agile Modeling, it covers related issues together in an easy to digest format. The guidelines themselves are short, concise, and well illustrated with examples.
I found it an easy book to read, being able to pick it up for a few minutes at a time without having to spend a lot of time to regain my context.
No matter how much you model, or what tools you use to do it, this little book will help make your diagrams better.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
When "less" is "more"
18 Jan 2003
Format:Paperback
This book has lots of excellent recommendations on style and presentation of UML diagrams. Ambler offers up 236 recommendations to questions such as: How often should I use stereotypes? Should we model keys into our DBMS? Should we require activation boxes on our sequence diagrams?
I have to recommend this little book to anyone beginning to use UML. More experienced object modelers will have developed their own modeling conventions, but they also will benefit from reading Ambler's articulate perspective. He is an accomplished modeler and an effective communicator.
Ambler covers style guidelines for all 9 UML 1.x diagrams. IMHO most of his suggestions are right-on, and his explanations are consise and accessible. I have been modeling OO systems for 10 years, and I don't agree with every recommendation Ambler makes, but I appreciate what he is offering in this book.
I especially like the fact that Ambler included an Appendix that lists all 236 guidelines in just a few pages. The book also has a high-quality bibliography of other modeling resources, and I was quite pleased that this short book also includes an Index for rapid access to terms.
Most development groups endorse the need for programming conventions and consistent naming standards. "The Elements of UML Style" is an extension of this philosophy to UML models, and every project will benefit from the ideas it presents.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
A great start on corporate modeling guidelines
10 Jan 2003
Format:Paperback
In writing The Elements of UML Style, Scott Ambler has done the software modeling community a great service. As a consultant and trainer of numerous corporate clients, I see many teams whose individuals understand the semantics of UML, but have yet to gel as a team with common practices and style. On these teams, communication and productivity often suffer when arguments erupt over why something is modeled the way it is and how my way is better. Teams need to agree on a set of common practices and style. The Elements of UML Style is a great starting point.
The Elements of UML Style is small, concise, intuitively organized, and well explained. It proceeds section by section through the various UML diagrams, in the order they are used on a project. These sections provide many tried and true common sense guidelines and some valuable, but less obvious guidelines aimed at creating well-formed models.
Is it necessary? Yes. This is the best compendium of UML modeling guidelines I have seen published. Projects would be foolish to start from scratch.
Is it sufficient? No. It is a starting point. Projects will want to adjust and go beyond what Ambler writes here. For example, The Elements of UML Style provides general guidelines that urge adopting common naming conventions (section 2.3). A corporation or project will want to nail down specific guidelines for their use case, class, and component names. Also, Ambler focuses on the diagrams of UML, but there is more to modeling than the diagrams. UML itself avoids topics such as what constitutes a well-formed use case specification, and so does Ambler's book. One would have to turn to other books or training, such as IconMedialab's Advanced Use Case Lab course for detailed guidelines in these areas.
Will I be an object modeler just by reading this book? No. This is not an intro book to modeling. Read Craig Larman's "Applying UML and Patterns" (for example) to learn how to object model. Instead, The Elements of UML Style brings together many of the nuggets that will help to become a better, more consistent, and easily understood modeler. I will be recommending this book to my clients.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
