14 books
—
2 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language” as Want to Read:
UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language
(Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)
by
More than 300,000 developers have benefited from past editions of UML Distilled . This third edition is the best resource for quick, no-nonsense insights into understanding and using UML 2.0 and prior versions of the UML. Some readers will want to quickly get up to speed with the UML 2.0 and learn the essentials of the UML. Others will use this book as a handy, quick
...more
Get A Copy
Paperback, Third Edition, 208 pages
Published
September 25th 2003
by Addison-Wesley Professional
(first published 1997)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
UML Distilled,
please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about UML Distilled
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language

UML Distilled 3rd edition is what I read most recently. It's a very light read that I would say is a practical reference book for the most industry-practical UML diagrams.
It is not a good source to learn UML, you're probably better of reading "Learning UML 2.0" or a similar more UML-focused book.
UML Distilled is a mostly chaotic and unordered review and thoughts of Fowler about the usage of the specific patterns. It doesn't go through the structure, behavioural and then interaction diagrams.
It ...more
It is not a good source to learn UML, you're probably better of reading "Learning UML 2.0" or a similar more UML-focused book.
UML Distilled is a mostly chaotic and unordered review and thoughts of Fowler about the usage of the specific patterns. It doesn't go through the structure, behavioural and then interaction diagrams.
It ...more

Using this more as a reference book, then a full blown read from start to finish. That said, the writing could be a lot better. As a IT professional, this book could be better at explaining all aspects of a given UML diagram. The book reads more like the information came from a software developer's brain that a layman (or someone who is not a software developer writing code).
Considering this is one of the top recommended UML books, I high higher hopes for the book. It is disappointing it is ...more
Considering this is one of the top recommended UML books, I high higher hopes for the book. It is disappointing it is ...more

The lack of design documentation in today's software development culture has become one of the reasons of technical debt. Reading books that helps to share the views on higher level as well as in the implementation perspective is a must. Also to share technical perspectives in the planning phases, the understanding of UML is very important!
The content of the books has been good to help me be more Object Oriented thinker and a better Technical Leader.
The content of the books has been good to help me be more Object Oriented thinker and a better Technical Leader.

This is my "little UML book", the big one being https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
A few months ago I had to plow through [Larman]. Now I needed a quick
refresher course. For this [Fowler] is great. He throws in some things in to think
about. If you are new in UML/ Object Oriented analysis/design, don't start here.
A little book doesn't mean it is easier.
A few months ago I had to plow through [Larman]. Now I needed a quick
refresher course. For this [Fowler] is great. He throws in some things in to think
about. If you are new in UML/ Object Oriented analysis/design, don't start here.
A little book doesn't mean it is easier.

Before reading this book, I was often at lost when using UML in software design. In the past, I put much emphasis on elaborate UML before writing code, while often got bogged down. UML distilled told me to use UML sparingly, which shed light on what UML's role really is. Not too much, not too complex. That's it!

This is a fairly short (160 page) gallop through UML2. It's short and to the point, and mostly this gets across the gist of what you need to know. There are times where it strays a bit too far into terseness, and some of the text really needs to be broken up with specific examples closer to the descriptions. Particularly, the text sometimes ploughs on with some quite dense descriptions and no visual example, or has a reference to a diagram several pages away, neither of which make for easy
...more

As a Business Analyst, and as a Professor of Business Analysis, I am frequently reading books about business analysis tools and techniques. I am very interested in using more UML in my work, so I thought that this would be a good book for me to read. Unfortunately, I didn't think that this book was all that great--at least not for a business analyst.
This book is probably far more useful to a systems designer or developer because most of the diagrams are described in terms of how they could be ...more
This book is probably far more useful to a systems designer or developer because most of the diagrams are described in terms of how they could be ...more

A good overview of UML. UML does not seem to be a large benefit to the software development process in itself, but its value stems from the value of modeling ideas on paper before sinking time into coding. Some of the techniques in this book are good to know about to help you think about your software and how your programs interact with other components of your system. UML formalizes the annotation, which is nice, but I think the thought process that goes into the diagrams more valuable. There
...more

Got a copy of the 3rd edition which focus on UML 2.0 version and read it completely! The book is excellently written, concise in a manner which provides lot of valuable information in short words. Along with clarifying various subtle differences in UML elements and concepts, author also gives useful insights to realizing/implementing these in programming languages(eg: Page 111 discusses 3 ways to realize state diagrams including state pattern). Also author discuss various related Object oriented
...more

I purchased another modeling book and found it to be too advanced so I decided to hunt down A more introductory one. This book turned out to be a fantastic introduction to the various models, with solid examples on how to use them.
The author seemed interesting to read, and held my attention throughout. This won't be the last UML book I pick up, but I'm glad I took the time to go through it. It is another one that will be around as a reference for a while.
The author seemed interesting to read, and held my attention throughout. This won't be the last UML book I pick up, but I'm glad I took the time to go through it. It is another one that will be around as a reference for a while.

So far, I am enjoying this book quite a bit (as much as a technical book can be enjoyed). It opts for brevity and serves as a highlight of the most useful UML practices instead of exhaustively describing the UML spec in detail. If you need the full gory details of UML, use another book, but if you want the "real" story of how UML is really used and get a good overview and feel - this is the book to use...

Wouldn't recommend this book (at least in Russian translation which I was reading), regardless of the fact that it was written by the Great Martin Fowler. The narration is pretty unlinked and a newbie would hardly understand how to use UML 2.0 correctly. May be more useful as a reference to those who just migrate from UML 1.x to UML 2.0.

I've always been a bit uneasy about UML—it seems to me a sort of hallmark of that über-strict, institutionalized OOP that I feel the need to avoid. The table of contents (available on Amazon) makes me think that some of these strategies might actually be useful, though. Maybe worth a skim, at least.

Apr 12, 2015
Caroline Gordon
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
software-development
I figured I should remind myself of all the things UML is so I at least know what I don't know about it. It would be fun to apply this now and this book is a great guide to get you there as quickly as possible. A really practical accessible book.

I read this at a point late in my career as a business analyst when I felt that I had no need for UML. This convinced me to use.it anyway, and productively so. It was a great help.

Jun 06, 2016
Vivek Kumar
is currently reading it
I started reading this book again. Its always good to read it after some time. I always find something new eachtime I read it.
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Goodreads Librari...: Please check ISBN13 | 2 | 14 | Oct 23, 2017 01:02PM |
Goodreads is hiring!
Martin Fowler (b. 1963) is a software engineer, Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks, and an outspoken advocate for best practices in enterprise software design, particularly in regard to agile software development methodologies, including extreme programming.
Other books in the series
Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series
(1 - 10 of 39 books)
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“If someone were to come up to you in a dark alley and say, "Psst, wanna see a UML diagram?" that
diagram would probably be a class diagram.”
—
1 likes
diagram would probably be a class diagram.”
“[...in interaction diagrams], comprehensiveness is the enemy of comprehensibility.”
—
1 likes
More quotes…