Object-Oriented Development: The Fusion Method

Rating:
Summary: OO Do-It the FUSION way (You must have it or be sorry!)
Review: I've read this book almost a year ago (till now at work with a very complex client-server development), we've used it in our class as a reference book. Only after reading this book that I understand the subject and appreciated it. I've also read some books of J. Martin, Ed Yourdon and others, their's are great too but see the difference for your selves.I'm waiting for the next edition (OBJECTIVELY).

Rating:
Summary: Strong method, fair description
Review: The OO method described is more complete than any I have used. It does have some weaknesses, namely in parallel (multi-threaded) development. But it is a complete method. It is not simply a notation without process, or process without notation.

On the down side, the book is dense, contradicts itself (e.g., the notation described in the appendix isn't used in the main text), short on examples, and somewhat short on how to use parts of the method.

But it's worth it simply for the method itself.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth reading.
Review: The UML books cover too many notation options. The individual authors -- Rumbaugh, Booch, Jacobson -- all have worthwhile contributions to OO, but the Fusion method takes the best parts of each and puts them together. One glaring shortcoming: some notation that the authors call the Life-Cycle Model. It's academic junk. No one uses it. This means that you don't want to follow their method blindly. (I didn't care much for their Visibility Graphs, p. 80, either.) One strength of the book is that they present a Fusion Process Summary in Appendix A that ties things together nicely, including a useful diagram of the entire method. Even if you use UML, you need to pick out what parts of UML you will use. I recommend using the Fusion method -- minus the Life-Cycle Model (p.31) -- and do it with the UML notation. The book, UML Distilled, gives a nice summary of UML notation and terms. The Fusion Method is excellant for object oriented design.