[Home Page] - [Reviews Main]

Object-Oriented Analysis (Second Edition) by Peter Coad & Edward Yourdon Not Recommended

ISBN: 0-13-629981-4       Publisher: Prentice Hall       Pages: 233pp       Price: £28-95 hardcover

Object-Oriented Design by Peter Coad & Edward Yourdon Not Recommended

ISBN: 0-13-630070-7       Publisher: Prentice Hall       Pages: 196pp       Price: £27-50 hardcover

Categories:   object oriented

Reviewed by Richard Sikora in C Vu 5-4 (May 1993)

Yourdon Press books tend to be rather expensive in terms of the amount of use that can be made of them. These are no exception.

Object Orientated Analysis is aimed at the systems analyst who is already familiar with OOP and other Yourdon Press publications e.g. 'Modern Structured Analysis and Design'. It tends to be written from the viewpoint of the philosopher rather than that of the programmer. Many pages are devoted to the discussion of definitions lifted from various dictionaries and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The text is verbose in places, reading like a set of lecture notes. It was annoying to find the same diagrams and accompanying text to be repeated up to 3 times through out the book. Do the writers think that the readers are gullible enough not to notice?

This in not a book specifically for C/C++ programmers - the most mentioned Object Orientated language is Smalltalk.

The second of the books, 'Object Orientated Design' follows on from the former. Essential concepts and diagrams from the first book are repeated; buying 'Object Orientated Analysis' is not a prerequisite.

In one section the writers (laughably) attempt to describe the subtleties of C++ in a mere 3 pages and do the same to apply OOP techniques to Object Pascal, Eiffel and Ada.

No worked examples or real case studies are provided for readers to sink their teeth into.

In both cases, the writers take every chance to promote their own software tools.

Conclusion: Neither of the books will provide particular inspiration to the hands-on programmer.

Note: As a yardstick a more useful book covering similar material was reviewed by Chris Hills in the January 1993 issue of CVu - Object Orientated Software Engineering by Ival Jacobson et al.

Comment: It is refreshing to find reviewers who express their own opinions without any regard to reputations. - Francis Glassborow.

Yourdon
Case Studies in Object Orientated Analysis and Design by Carl Argila & Edward Yourdon [Highly Recommended]  (Reviewed May 1998)
Death March Projects by Edward Yourdon [Recommended]  (Reviewed Jan 1999)
Object Oriented Analysis, (Second Edition) by Peter Coad & Edward Yourdon [Recommended]  (Reviewed Feb 1994)
Object-Oriented Design by Peter Coad & Edward Yourdon [Not Recommended]  (Reviewed May 1993)
Rise & Resurrection of the American Programmer by Edward Yourdon [Recommended]  (Reviewed Jul 1996)
Time Bomb 2000 by Edward Yourdon & Jennifer Yourdon [Recommended]  (Reviewed May 1998)