The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction (2nd Edition)

Author: Philippe Kruchten List Price: $34.99 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0201707101 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co (14 March, 2000) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 15,589 Average Customer Rating: 3.88 out of 5

Buy now directly from Amazon.com -

Customer Reviews

This book gives you great high-level insight on how your organization can benefit by adopting and implementing RUP in your developmental projects.

"The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction" is an overview into the theory behind RUP. Great chart and graphics describe the processes RUP is rooted in, and the title is written in such a way as to indirectly hammer home the concepts into your subconscious, without being too blatantly redundant. Essentially, you'll get the jist of RUP - iterations, that the waterfall process isn't efficient, the importance of establishing diversity in team-based development, and the importance of architecture.

Basically, the book also enforces the concept that self-organization and communication within an organization (within the team, throughout the company, and with clients) is key. It reads more like a business journal than a technical guide, so hands-on examples are left out.

Also, the poster summarizing the key RUP activities that's included with the book is really great. I would have liked a case study at the end of the book to tie together the concepts with a practical example, but the book is great otherwise. I also found the fact that samples of RUP templates to be a bit disappointing. A helpful appendix listing some (not all) of the key artifacts used in RUP planning is also appreciated.

I teach Computer Science at Florida Tech, including undergraduate and graduate courses in software testing. Krutchen provides a thoughtful but very readable, persuasive discussion of risks associated with different software lifecycles. In my experience as a teacher, my students' ability to appreciate differences among lifecycles and analyze them critically is significantly boosted by study and discussion of Krutchen. Accordingly, I require my students to read the relevant section of his book, they have detailed small-group discussions of it, and it often appears on their exam.

This book is an introduction. It doesn't address all of the problems with RUP. It doesn't cover all of the areas of RUP equally well. It won't make any reader an expert in the process or its favored practices. It won't persuade someone who doesn't like RUP that they should like. What it does do is expose the reader to the thinking and practices that make up this particular approach to software engineering.

This book is much deeper than marketing fluff, but not so deep as to lose a junior reader. As a teacher, I am delighted to have materials like this available.

(Disclosure: a little bit of my work has been included in RUP, and I have developed a course for Rational on software testing within the Rational process. However, I identify more with the agile development / XP community than with the RUP community. In any case, the question that I'm interested in answering in this review is not whether RUP is any good -- it has its good points and its weaknesses -- but rather whether Krutchen's introduction to RUP is a fair and useful introduction to that subject matter. My conclusion is that it is.)

Similar Products