Sams Teach Yourself Uml in 24 Hours: Complete Starter Kit 3rd Edition

I'm a graduate student in a Systems Engineering class, and I was having problems following the instructor's lectures and homework because the instructor was throwing in a lot of UML-based work without introducing UML in class first. I had downloaded a community version of a UML diagramming tool (Astah) from which I hoped to pick up enough of the syntax and semantics to get up to speed, but I found the lack of "help" files and the foreignness of the UML prevented that approach from being successful for me. I spoke with the instructor, who recommended the Sam's "Teach Yourself UML in 24 Hours" as a good starter text. He also recommended "UML Distilled..." by Martin Fowler et al. (now in its third edition). I skimmed the Fowler book first, and found it useful but heavily focused on software. When I read through the Sam's "Teach Yourself" book, I found it both more approachable as a novice and more general in terms of the application of the UML to things other than software. I still had some learning to do, as not every UML tool implements every UML concept in the same way, and my instructor kept using a "context diagram" that was nowhere to be found in the UML! I later discovered he was using the IDEF0 context diagram without labeling it as such. However, the Sam's book was instrumental in my quickly grasping basic UML diagramming.I can't comment on the included CD, because I haven't used it.

Reasonably clear introduction to UML. I've tried others (O'Reilly for instance). This is best.

Its a great book,simplified the whole concept of UML to me. I have always had it tough to understand UML as programmer, the teach your series (UML) as contributed immersely to my understanding of UML. A Big Thanks to the Author.

Not sure, this book contains information and is an easy read but somehow nothing gets stuck when you read through it. The examples are a bit farfetched (vending machine) and not so closely software related, so this may be more for system analysts rather than software engineers.Maybe the root problem is not so much the book but UML. I have tried for years to wrap my head around UML but it just slippery like a jelly fish. Some diagrams are good and I use them all the time, but 75% of them are useless or maybe just useful outside of software development.

Good book for beginners

perfect

a CD containing a UML tool is included, but the software wouldn't install.

Good book. Thanks to it I've pass my UML exam on university. I study IT. I needed really basic information and needed to learn it quickly and painlessly. It teaches you exactly the things you need to know and gives you perspective that allows you to use your knowledge when working on real projects.I highly recommend it.

Just started reading although uml can be complex this book is written wellfinally be able to understand uml some other books just miss the point

I bought this book mainly for the software in order to learn UML, howevere the software manufacturer "Gentleware", a German company no longer provides a FREE version of UML 2.x Community Edition so BEWARE!Extract from their website:-Gentleware: Poseidon for UML Community Edition.Can I download the Community Edition and start working with it immediately?Yes. There is still a cost-free version that does not require any sort of license or registration in order to use it and it is not limited by time, number of starts, or number of diagrams. The free version has most of the functionality of the licensed version - only the export features like printing and saving are not included.Why is the Community Edition with the export features not free of charge anymore?Since 2001, we have been offering our Community Edition free of charge for non-commercial use. Unfortunately, we recognized that over the last few years, more and more customers have started to use our Community Edition in a commercial context. We therefore feel compelled to reconsider our free offering.We are fully aware that there are still a lot of customers who use the commercial edition in a non-commercial context. With this in mind, we are introducing a very attractive billing model with a very low financial barrier for using the Community Edition - the Rent Subscription.Start working with Poseidon for UML Community edition with just 5 EUR (6 USD) per month. For more information regarding our new billing model, please read our FAQ section about the Rent Subscription. We want to emphasize that we have very attractive university pricing and we also have a very low price for students.