systems analysis and design

This very important book will earn you course credit and also apply toward a valuable ICCP ACP or CCP certification, the standard for US Armed Forces and Government Agencies. This is not an easy certification to master or achieve, so pay attention to the detail in this book. The book terminology is relevant to the industry today, and the repetitive approach is geared toward an important cognitive technique: that you are more likely to remember something if you hear it or see it more than once. It's a wonder why somebody would bother with education, who is calling such important material 'garbage' or 'hi-tech dribble.' These people should re-examine why they are in school, why they are taking this class, and why they are reading this book? And it shouldn't be because mom or dad or anybody else wants you to. This book is designed to be interactive and therefore layered with repetition to enhance learning. It should be to LEARN as much information and technique as possible before getting a real-world job, where these skills make the difference. I was a software engineer, multi-level trained in the systems analysis and design standards of James Martin and Edward Yourdon, still applicable today.

This book is simply the best I've seen on this topic to date. The authors present the material in order of the systems development life cycle, which I feel is of great value. Another thing adding value is the use of an adapted version of Zachman's framework.

When I used this to teach class, I emphasized the development process, from the survey phase on. This book helped me do that well. Using the SDLC as a framework, the authors present specific and relevant skills, so a certain amount of repitition is unavoidable, even necessary. The chapter outlines of chapters 4, 9, 17 and 18 provide the life cycle framework. The chapters in between present the specific techniques and templates that are used to fill in the blanks.

But there are opportunities to improve the book. There should be complete examples of all the important documents, not just outlines. A complete example helps the student visualize what the real deliverables will look like. The process modeling chapter should cover IDEF0 activity modeling and process mapping. Data modeling needs to mention relevant modeling tools like ERwin. (And there were a few errors here in the example.)

Even so, this is a fine work that seems so lucid and well-structured that I still use it as a reference book.

YOU WILL NEED THIS BOOK IF YOUR GOIGN TO TAKE Course Materials - Pace University | Web Assisted, Pleasantville