UML Applied: A .NET Perspective

The critics of this book seem to be most negative about Mr Shoemaker's failure to link Dot Net and UML. While it is true that there is not a great deal in the book about this specific topic, that is certainly the top half of the glass. The bottom half is the Five-Step-UML and requirements gathering with UML. The Five-Step-Process, DRADR (define, refine, assign, design, reiterate) has been used by this writer with great success and is worth the price of the tome by itself. In studying and obtaining a certification in UML many books and articles have been perused but this was the first found that took UML beyond a set of thirteen diagrams to an executable process. Not only is the process defined but also detailed to the point where a process template has been developed from the ideas outlayed. It is a cliche that the down fall of most failed business process projects, including many SDLC projects, is the failure to properly elicit, define, analyze and communicate process requirements. This fact makes Mr. Shoemaker's three chapters, five, six and seven, on requirement gathering, categorization, analysis and refinement a trove of process knowledge.