Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Matt's Preface This book illustrates how to get from use cases to working, maintainable source code in as few steps as possible . . . but without cutting the essential corners. It's also about how to minimize the amount of rework you need to do once you've gotten to source code. Learning by Doing In this book we've tried to capture the essential qualities of Doug's ICONIX training courses-- that is, the "magic qualities" of learning by doing. The ICONIX Jumpstart courses are very practical and hands-on; they draw students in by encouraging them to learn new skills by practicing, often on the real projects that they'll be returning to once the course is finished. This idea of learning by doing has long been recognized as an optimal form of education. Even at the start of the twentieth century, John Dewey, an American psychologist and edu- tional reformer, recognized that learning from experience gives rise to increasing productivity. The key is to engage the brain with practical tasks rather than to fall into the all-too-familiar "study trap" of rote learning. Memorizing long lists of names or API functions might help someone score highly on a test, but it isn't the same as understanding a subject in depth. For one thing, people tend not to retain information for very long if they've simply memorized it.
Synopsis
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Synopsis
Diagramming and process are important topics in today's software development world, as the UML diagramming language has come to be almost universally accepted. Yet process is necessary; by themselves, diagrams are of little use. This is underscored by the number of recent books explaining Extreme Programming (XP), which many believe goes too far toward having no structure or no method. This book combines the notation of UML with the lightweight but effective ICONIX process. The work functions as an up-to-date edition of the authors' successful Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UML: A Practical Approach (Addison-Wesley). Sitting between the free-for-all of XP and overly rigid processes like RUP, ICONIX offers enough structure to be successful. ICONIX has attracted a growing following; for example, Sparx Systems' Enterprise Architect CASE tool (with 80,000+ copies in the field), which directly supports ICONIX as an option, presenting online help material on ICONIX.