software design

Sometime ago I have been wondering if somebody will try to bridge the gap between business modeling (the one used by consultants) and software engineering. It would certainly make it easier for people to understand and explain business operations.

This book is an application of the UML into the realm of business modeling. It is very good in the sense that it explains and goes through the patterns that form business models. The introduction on UML is pretty short and concise, so if you are new to it try using "Applying UML..." book to get an introduction. Be prepared to sit down and spend some time reading, since the material can be a little bit daunting to try to understand and remember all the patterns available. Overall, I wish I had this book for Systems Analysis instead of the outdated software engineering books that we used.

Considering that that the "UML Toolkit", although now dated, is a useful book, I was expecting quite a lot from "Business Modeling with UML". However, it seems like the authors couldn't make up their mind about what to focus on. The core of the book, the Eriksson-Penker business extensions, make up for a mere twenty pages of the book, and the rest of the book is spent discussing various patterns, business rules and the UML in general. Many of the subjects discussed are based upon earlier works, and treated a bit too lightly, imho. Similar to just watching the highlights on sportscenter, it just doesn't tell the whole story. There are also a number of (minor) syntactical errors in the chapter dealing with OCL, which somewhat confuses things for the reader. Despite this, not all is bad with the book. The E-P Business Extensions are useful, and their creation of four business views (similar to the 4+1 view of software architecture) is indeed a good one. The book also fills a void in the UML and RUP, which is well needed, so by all means, take a look at it.

I am looking for a book that would be able to flesh out proper business processes utilizing well defined modeling language/framework. Although UML is extremely useful for software development, the author's work did make its case stand with me on UML's usefulness as business process modeling tool.

The examples are too simplistic and the suggested modeling diagrams are far too cluterred for a business personel to understand.(Cluttered diagrams on a simple example) The book would be better if it had a growing case study and used real world examples and diagrams.