Goals

I l @ ve RuBoard

When I set out to write the first version of this book, I thought, "This should be pretty easy . . . I do this for a living." Boy, was I wrong! Putting into words what I do on a daily basis was one of the hardest things I have ever done (all right, childbirth was more painful, but not by much). But I persevered, spent many, many nights and weekends in front of my computer, and gave birth to Visual Modeling with Rational Rose and UML . I must admit that the first time I saw my book on the bookshelf at a local bookstore, I was thrilled. I also found out that you need to have very thick skin to read book reviews. My book is unique since people seem to love it (5 stars) or they are less than impressed with it (1 star). For some reason, I rarely get a rating in between.

I have also figured out that writing a book that is tied to a tool is like rearing a child ”it needs constant care. So, once again, I have spent hours in front of my computer updating my book to adhere to the features found in Rational Rose 2002. And no, writing it has not gotten much easier.

As far as the two camps of reviewers, nothing will change there. If you liked the first two versions, you will like this one since the goal of the book has not changed: to be a simple introduction to the world of visual modeling. If you were less than impressed with the first two versions, you will probably not like this version either. It is not a complete guide to the UML (these books have been written by Grady and Jim and I am not even going to attempt to compete with the definitive experts). It is not a complete guide to the Rational Unified Process (these books have been written, quite nicely , by Philippe and Ivar). It is not even a good book on C++ (in fact, I usually tell people that I no longer write code for a living, and there is a very good reason that I don't). As I stated, this book is meant to take a simple, first look at how a process, a language, and a tool may be used to create a blueprint of your system.

I l @ ve RuBoard