Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide (2nd Edition)

Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide (2nd Edition)

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Perfect for software engineers and project managers, Applying Use Cases, Second Edition, shows you how to implement use cases effectively to design better software in less time. This concise and jargon-free text gives you some best practices to try out in your software shop.

While many titles on software engineering get bogged down in software engineering theory, this book is a friendly and intelligent exception to the rule. The authors deliver a clearly presented tour of the basics of designing effective use cases organized around a single large case study for an order-processing system. The key steps in developing and refining use cases are illustrated with dialogues between hypothetical participants, framed by commentary. From defining a project scope to identifying risks and then creating basic and advanced use cases, guidelines and sample documents are provided to help you get started.

The material on integrating how-to document success and failure scenarios as actors work with software is particularly good. (The successful "basic path" is documented first, and then you learn about what can go wrong in alternative failure paths.) The authors are very clear about how use cases work together, even including or inheriting from one another. Managers will appreciate the presentation of a method (and formula) to calculate how long a given project will take based on the number and complexity of its use cases. This title makes judicious use of UML throughout (including activity diagrams) that can supplement written textual descriptions of use cases. Final chapters examine how to fit use cases into the entire project development lifecycle, from implementing to deploying a design.

Applying Use Cases proves that computer books don't have to be 1,000 pages long to provide real expertise on writing better applications. This is an extremely worthwhile choice for any developer or IT manager seeking to deliver higher quality software in less time. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

Overview of use cases
The iterative software design process
A case study for an ordering system for a mail order company
Identifying risks, actors, and use cases
Handling time
System boundaries
Sample text-based and graphical use case documents
Basic and alternative paths to processing
Using include
Extend and inheritance relationships between use cases
Getting the right level of detail for use cases
Documentation templates and sample use case styles
Documenting common system features (login and CRUD functions)
Reviewing use cases with different stakeholders
Common mistakes with use cases
Dividing large systems
Architectural patterns and multitiered applications
UML notations for use case and sequence diagrams
Project estimates based on use cases
Use cases during the construction and deployment project phases
UML quick reference

Book Description
There have been many changes for us and for the UML since the first edition was released in September 1998. The book has changed to stay current. The material in the first edition is also in the second edition, but you may find it in a new location. We moved the engineering-oriented material to the end of the book, and the business-oriented material to the beginning. This should make it easier for different audiences to find the material that interests them. We updated the book to UML 1.3. A lot of the changes are in Chapters 3 and 4 because that is where we described most of the notation. The uses relationship became two relationships in UML 1.3, include and generalization. The extends relationship became extend. In both cases the notation changed as well. The definition of scenarios changed a bit too. What we used to call scenarios are now called paths. We have added some new material that we found useful and important. Chapter 6 is a new chapter on setting the level of detail in use cases. This includes information on business process-level use cases and maintaining traceability between use cases at different levels of detail. Chapter 7, Documenting Use Cases, includes some ideas on handling login and CRUD (create, read, update, delete) in use cases. Chapter 8, Reviews, has a new section on common mistakes we have seen and how to fix them. We have included more information on sequence diagrams in Chapters 5 and 9. There have been changes for me and Jason as well. Jason left Octel and is now a staff engineer at Cadence Design Systems. I liked having my own business, but didn't like the bookkeeping, so I took a job running the OO division of Andrews Technology, Inc. We still have Wyyzzk and Jason does some weekend consulting for that business. Things even changed on the publishing side. Addison-Wesley is now part of Pearson Education, and we have a whole new team managing the Object Technology series. They have been wonderful to work with and made the transition as smooth as possible. One question we get asked a lot is: What do the footprints and people talking icons mean? The footprints mark major steps in the process. The people talking appear next to the storyline. Thank you for all the e-mail about the book. We don't always get a chance to reply, but we have read all your letters and hope we have answered most of your questions in this second edition. Geri Schneider Winters Santa Clara, California 0201708531P04062001

Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide (2nd Edition)

Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide (2nd Edition),Geri Schneider,Jason P. Winters,Addison-Wesley Professional,0201708531,Application software,Computer Books: General,Computers,Computers - Languages / Programming,Development,Object-Oriented Programming,Programming - Object Oriented Programming,Programming - Software Development,Programming - Systems Analysis & Design,Use cases (Systems engineering,Use cases (Systems engineering),Computers / Programming / Object Oriented

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