Reviews for UML in a Nutshell (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly))

1. Couldn't even read it

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, March 12nd, 2010

   The problem here is...
   
   This isn't a book in the traditional sense... It's basicly a MASSIVE list of bullet points, pick this thing up in a shop and flick through, everything is bullet points. Most of them don't even have a direct point, they are all completely abstract and based on concepts.
   
   Instead of saying "Here is how you would use UML to plan your project"
   
   It would say " 1) unification of concepts to create one system 2) leverage of knowledge, to capture and communicate blah blah" It's just unbearably boring, and this is coming from somebody who just read "the essence of databases" and thought it was highly interesting and fun to read.
   
   I got 5 pages in and just completely lost the plot... I cannot be bothered to go any further, It's like reading a book long system specification

2. Infuriating

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2004

   Having used UML for some time I was looking for a book I could use to lookup some of the finer points without much trouble.
   This is not that book. Decidely unfriendly this book eschews straightforward examples in favour of jargon and tedious detail.
   For those who like unlikely information conveyed in a turgid style; but a handy reference it's not.

3. Miserable example of incompetent writing

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2004

   I have quite a few "nutshell guides" on my bookshelf; usually they're concise, more or less clearly-written short reference books. This example, I'm afraid to say, is the exact opposite.
   The text is abstract, repetitive and unstructured. The author poobably has only a fuzzy understanding of the concepts he is trying to communicate, but it's hard to tell because the writing style is so sloppy and obtuse. UML is not difficult, but you would never guess it from this book.

   At the beginning of chapter 2, I was promised "you will understand.. an overall view of problems, solutions, and problem solving". By the end of the chapter, I despaired of understanding anything ever again. Buy something else instead.

4. Sort-of a good book

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2004

   iv been learning UML else where at college and i got this book for refrence notes, for this purpose its a great book , gives u a good bit of detail on most subjects.

   If you are getting this book to teach your self UML I would advise not to. The book starts out in almost a list for a good few pages making it, not only hard to grasp what the book means, very fragmented and hard to put together.

   As you read the book it does go into detail but I feel that it doesn't give enough help to people just learning about OO design for the first time.

   Over all a good reference book

5. Really quite unhelpful

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2001

   The author states that if you want to learn about UML this is not the book for you. The book sets out to be a kind of notation/definition reference work. However if this was what had been written we'd be looking at a much smaller book. The author does set out to teach the reader about UML but really manages to avoid doing so. One reason for this is the exceptionally arid style. The book is written in the style of a philosophy logic primer, with excessive weight being given to building up a system ( the UML language ) from a handful of concepts... If you want an intro try 'Applying UML and Patterns' by Larman. It's not perfect, and it doesn't use the full range of UML but it does talk you through how you might go about integrating UML into your designs.