UML for Database Design (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)

The authors also present things with assumptions made about how the organization is structured: separate application and database design teams. This slant requires that the reader translate what is written to their particular situation. A more useful book would have stated principles that can be applied to various organization structures with appropriate practices.

Also, there is no advice given as to how to actually implement any of these UML extensions for database design in the available tools. This makes the ideas presented hard to put in practice and makes the book much more theoretical than practical.

Bottom line, there is not enough unique information here for the book to stand on its own. It would be better to roll this information into texts like the ones I mentioned at the beginning, and also give examples using currently available tools.


Great understanding for all facets of DB Design   December 25, 2002
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Despite the previous reviews of this book I decided to read it and am glad that I did. The authors took me through a thorough yet easily understood path of both UML and database design. Not being an expert in UML, but having a background as a data analyst, I found the book useful to understand UML as it pertained to how I would use it. The callouts for database designers were very helpful and by following a consistent real-world example, I was able to understand how I would design my databases using the UML. I now understand that I don't have to know or even use the entire language to succeed, but only the parts that are relevant at the time I am designing and now I can be on the same page as my development team too.


I really liked it!   November 11, 2002
 2 out of 4 found this review helpful

I wanted a book that would show how to start using UML for data modeling. This did. I too liked the DB Designer sidebars and the detailed case study. I thought the case study "story" sections were a nice change of pace from most software books' straight technical style. (And I've see such stories happen on the job too often.) This book worked for me.


overpriced brochure from Rational Corp   August 24, 2002
 4 out of 8 found this review helpful

In the grand tradition of Rational Corp - this is an overpriced book from Rational Corp to complement its overpriced software. I must commend the HealthCare example in the book that is described in fair detail. The book's website is empty and does not supplement the book's content - only contains a link to order the book and an email to contact the authors. If you have to buy it, buy a used copy or read the free marketing stuff on the Rational website.


Needs a revision   January 9, 2002
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

I am halfway through this book, which was given to me by a design team member. I agree with a previous reviewer that this book is too long and has numerous opaque passages. It is a narrative of a presumably fictitious project, and must therefore be read from beginning to end. Given enough time, that would be OK, however my reading list for software engineering already has several books waiting in a holding pattern.

It is useful to compare this book with related works that readers might hope to complement their database design and implementation work. Database Programming with JDBC and Java (G. Reese, O'Reilly) is more concise and more practical to read one or a few chapters at a time, intercalated with other readings. It also includes mention of design patterns in the object oriented design of persistent objects, a serious omission in Naiburg and Maksimchuk. Reese does not delve much into database design proper, which is why one might want to have Naiburg and Maksimchuk handy. Unfortunately, they don't complement each other that well.

Building Object Applications that Work (Scott Ambler, Cambridge Univ. and SIGS Press) is a much better introduction to object oriented analysis and design, and provides a simple (though not necessarily ideal) means to persist objects to a database. If you are in a horrendous hurry to learn a way to do it, Ambler's book would be better. Beware: Scott Ambler is an opinionated guy.

The authors also introduce a few notational elements to the UML to distinguish business actors and use cases from their non-business counterparts. Oddly enough, these notations don't appear in Rational Rose, presumably one of the tools the authors use given that the book is part of the Booch Jacobson Rumbaugh series.

This book could be improved in a future edition by:
1) De-emphasizing the lengthy narrative of the example project
2) Avoiding UML notation that is not available in commonly used tools such as Rational Rose and Together ControlCenter
3) Detailed discussion of strategies for mapping design patterns for persistent objects to database design, and
4) Cleaning up the prose and removing lengthy and uninformative passages, some of which must have been written either at wee hours of the morning or with a Damoclean publishing deadline hanging over the authors' heads.

The book is useful, but neither a must-have nor a source of rapidly deployable knowledge.