The development of software can be the most fun you can have alone in an office. It is a fascinating mixture of business and marketing insight, technological skill, planning, creative spark and dogged determination.
When I started with microcomputers, it was realistic for one person to teach himself everything he needed to know in 9-12 months. Today, no one can learn it all. Keeping up with new languages, component technology, methodologies, operating systems and multimedia development platforms is simply overwhelming. Software has become more complex, customer expectations have risen and the pace of change continues to accelerate.
Object-oriented analysis and design methodology is not a universal panacea. It won't provide you with a market, it won't manage your project delivery, it won't shield you from incompetent management or marketing, it won't even teach you to write clever code. It will, however, help you manage the complexity of your design and communicate your plan to other developers. I'm convinced that the fundamentals of design and modeling described in this book will stand up to the test of time.
I'm thrilled that you were willing to stick with me as we explored this technology, and I look forward to hearing from you about how things work out for you as you apply these techniques. Please feel free to contact me at
. You can also find supplementary material for this book at the Wrox website: jliberty@libertyassociates.com
, or at my web site: http//:www.wrox.com
— just click on Books & Resources.http://www.libertyassociates.com
Thank you again.
Jesse Liberty
February, 1998