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Title: Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process by Scott W. Ambler, Ron Jeffries ISBN: 0-471-20282-7 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 22 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.81 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: YOU need this book!
Comment: If you are involved in any way with software development, you need this book. Although the title might suggest that it's concerned only with modeling, or with agile processes, the book implicitly (and necessarily) deals with most if not all aspects of the business of developing software.
Because the work was itself actually created using some of the agile practices (most notably, interaction with "customers" via the Agile Modeling mailing list), it speaks remarkably well to the concerns of actual practitioners, and is a remarkably thorough treatment of an issue with broad scope. Following the best principles of both agile development and open-source (and key AM values of Humility and Courage), the author revised and extended the book over the course of several months, displaying many draft elements on the AM website to be reviewed (and criticized) by fellow practitioners.
This book is grounded in reality, discussing what practices (agile and otherwise) people actually use, how they use them, and which of them work. Moreover, it describes many of the MOTIVATIONS behind certain practices, which is invaluable information both in applying (or eschewing) them, and in understanding and predicting the attitudes of various stakeholders to them.
Because it ties so many ideas together, this book will help to define software engineering into the future, even though it does not prescribe a methodology. It is well-structured and easy to use as a reference.
In short, this book has high technical AND business value. Indeed, it has value beyond the software business, probably across most business and engineering disciplines. I have my own copy, and plan to give some away as well.
Buy it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ambler's most valuable book to date
Comment: The hype that grew around eXtreme Programming (XP) in the year 2001, and the publication of now almost 2 dozen books devoted to XP has not cleared up the original vagueness of what practices are allowed and what aren't. To a casual observer the XP culture seems replete with "Thou shalt not's"¯ don't do Big Requirements Up Front, don't do Big Design Up Front, don't build models because it's only the code that matters, etc. For those of us who think it's important to have a map of where you are going before you start a long trip, some of the radicalness of XP was¯well, too radical and too unplanned.
Scott Ambler's new book, Agile Modeling, addresses a sane middle ground between the apparent unstructured XP and the overly structured approach in the Rational Unified Process (RUP). Agile Modeling is arguably Ambler's best book to date. It conveys an approach that is truly a confluence of best practices and does so in a very readable, accessible presentation.
Ambler presents Agile Modeling (AM) as a set of values, principles and practices. AM's values are borrowed directly from those in XP: Communication, Simplicity, Feedback and Courage, with Ambler's addition of "humility". In my experience this additional value is a defining characteristic of an effective modeler and mentor. From these 5 values Ambler defines the principles for AM, including: Software is your Primary Goal, Travel Light, Embrace Change, use Multiple Models, etc.
It is interesting to me that no one would refute these principles: they are too close to Motherhood and Apple pie. But it is disturbing how seldom I see any of these principles actually embraced by the dozen or more organizations I provide mentoring services to each year.
The bare-metal practicality of AM is in the chapters on "Agile Modeling in Practice". Here Ambler goes into detail on the practices that support the AM principles. Are you curious how your culture might adopt AM? See his chapter on "Nurturing an Agile Culture". In a quandary over what expensive OO CASE tool to buy? See "Using the Simplest Tools Possible?" In his broad reach in this book Ambler covers issues surrounding how you can effectively set up your work areas, how to conduct modeling sessions, how to staff your AM teams, and more. And each chapter ends with a pragmatic commentary on "How to Make This Work in the Real World".
I predict that if one chapter is read more than any other it will be the one on "Agile Documentation". This is also the longest chapter in the book, and Ambler skillfully addresses the two big questions of "Why Do People Document?" and "When Does a Model Become Permanent?" And if for some perverse reason you didn't read any chapter but this one, it alone would justify the cost of the book.
The last two sections of the book show how to apply these principles and practices to an XP environment (Part 3), and then how they can be applied to a Unified Process environment (Part 4). Again the approach is on the practical application of AM so that you can have a better chance of succeeding on your next (or current) software project.
If you are a software developer, a technical manager or project manager, you cannot afford to dismiss this book. Forty years ago no one did the "waterfall" process (Winston Royce hadn't defined it yet) and forty years from now we will certainly be building software in ways we have not yet even conceived. But this year and for the foreseeable future we will be using every idea from Agile Modeling to build better software faster. As Ambler says about building an agile culture, "You can be agile or you can be fragile." That says it all, so get this book and learn how AM can make you a winner.
Rating: 4
Summary: I recommend this book
Comment: Good book with lots of behind the scenes process info about how to implement agile modeling techniques. If you are looking for step by step instructions to modeling or how to model, look elsewhere. It doesn't cover specific modeling, but techniques. Some of the techniques are common sense, but there were lots of suggestions of how to apply them in a difficult political environment. I did not completely agree with the often repeated
statement that unless you apply all of the techniques you cannot truly claim agile modeling success, which I think is a somewhat arrogant statement. Agile modeling is a huge cultural change and implementing as much as possible, if not all, is still a great idea.
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Title: The Elements of UML(TM) Style (SIGS Reference Library) by Scott W. Ambler ISBN: 0521525470 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 18 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Agile Database Techniques : Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer (Wiley Application Development S.) by Scott Ambler ISBN: 0471202835 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 06 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: Agile Software Development by Alistair Cockburn ISBN: 0201699699 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 15 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices by Robert Cecil Martin ISBN: 0135974445 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $57.00 |
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Title: Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide by Craig Larman ISBN: 0131111558 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 15 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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