Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide (Addison-Wesley Object Technology) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Use cases are an integral part of UML and RUP so enterprise-level programmers need to know them. They are most useful in the planning stages of large projects to provide a sanity check and a framework. The authors demonstrate the use case process with a hypothetical project to develop a new mail order company. Somewhat twee "discussions" between the fictional developers humanise the subject and provide an unusual degree of narrative tension for such an academic work.

About two thirds of the book is concerned with teaching you how use case is employed. It covers documentation, diagramming, levels of detail and the review process. There's also discussion on splitting large projects and construction/delivery of the system. In the appendices you'll find resources--books and Web sites--documentation templates, UML notation and the order processing system itself taken as far as designing graphic interfaces.

All in all, a thoroughly readable, hands on, introduction to an important and useful project design tool. --Steve Patient

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