Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process

by Scott W. Ambler

The first book to cover Agile Modeling, a new modeling technique created specifically for XP projects eXtreme Programming (XP) has created a buzz in the software development community-much like Design Patterns did several years ago. Although XP presents a methodology for faster software development, many developers find that XP does not allow for modeling time, which is critical to ensure that a project meets its proposed requirements. They have also found that standard modeling techniques that use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) often do not work with this methodology. In this innovative book, Software Development columnist Scott Ambler presents Agile Modeling (AM)-a technique that he created for modeling XP projects using pieces of the UML and Rational's Unified Process (RUP). Ambler clearly explains AM, and shows readers how to incorporate AM, UML, and RUP into their development projects with the help of numerous case studies integrated throughout the book.AM was created by the author for modeling XP projects-an element lacking in the original XP designThe XP community and its creator have embraced AM, which should give this book strong market acceptanceCompanion Web site at www.agilemodeling.com features updates, links to XP and AM resources, and ongoing case studies about agile modeling.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Technology, Computer Science, Computers

402 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 4, 2002

About the author

Scott W. Ambler is a Canadian software engineer, consultant and author, currently Senior Consulting Partner at Scott Ambler + Associates.

From Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Edwin Dalorzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful, but excessively long

The book covers in detail what is agile modeling and how to implement it. The author delves into the often uncharted territory of agile requirements engineering and agile software design. In these two particular topics I found the book to be pretty useful and I learned some new fresh perspectives on how to solve these problems. The book, though, is unnecessary long and the author tends to be too verbose, often reiterating over and over the same ideas to the point of absolute boredom. I found it really difficult to read the book cover to cover and skipped several pages, just browsing, looking for interesting headlines where to stop and read further. The book is old and some of the methodologies mentioned in the book may be considered outdated by many (e.g. the book has a chapter on how to do agile modeling with RUP). Many reference links to other materials mentioned in the book are no longer valid and the referenced web pages do not exist.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

For us techies, this was an easy read while still informative. This is a book that I keep on my shelf for reference from time to time to make sure that I am approaching projects correctly. Adding Agile methods to my project management approach has helped me to keep moving forward, while pleasing the customer as well. Any developer (programming or not) who has not read this, should take the time to read it and learn from the approach.

My wish would be that more disciplines would adopt these principles.

[Sami Poimala · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first books about agility that I've read. A lot of my thinking comes from this one book. It gives you a solid mind set about agility from the modeling perspective. But it's not limited to modeling. It's about being an effective developer.