more than agile topics and holds up after five years

Even though the book is over five years old, its principles still apply today. Time has been good to the maturation and deployment of agile practices, as what Mr. Ambler said in 2003 has become more conventional thinking. His advice and best practices make for excellent reading.

Agile development is really only a subset of the book, with an introduction on agile development and a sales pitch for its adoption. In some sections, agile is woven into a topic, such as refactoring, that stands on its own with or without agile methodology. I can easily imagine material that started as essays on solid best practices being updated with the latest thinking, including agile.

Our organization does not use UML and has no intention to do the detailed modeling that Mr. Ambler suggests. Readers in similar situations may consider those parts looking for ideas or quickly skim them without disruption to the rest of the arguments.

I have read Scott Ambler in various contexts and his insights are always welcome. He knows the issues involved in development, including database-oriented projects, as demonstrated by his ability to touch lightly or go deep. One of the highlights here is that he articulates tradeoffs. Well, you could do this, or you could do that, and here are the issues to consider, wisely deferring the analysis and decisions to actual projects.

Other Reviews

• more than agile topics and holds up after five years
• Excellent book. Required reading for anyone who works with databases.
• OK, but not much from a DBA side of things
• Go boldly beyond the persistence layer
• quick easy read