In the Unified Process (or any systems life cycle) the milestones/phases up to transition are well documented, but these represent the tip of the iceberg with respect to determining project success and total cost of ownership. This unique book examines the transition and production support requirements, addressing some of the deficiencies in the Unified Process (production support is all but ignored), and can be applied to other development life cycle models, nearly all of which have the same blind spots.

Many of the ideas and the approach for this book were born in the author's earlier book, " More Process Patterns", which examined the very transition and support requirements in a more generic manner. In fact this book, like the earlier one, is a collection of best practice patterns that cover the transition and production milestones. After an introduction that explains the rationale and approach, the book covers the workflows and patterns in the sequence in which they will occur: testing, deployment and environment, operations and support, project management and infrastructure management.

What makes this book important is that it extends the Unified Process to include the key milestones that account for cost and quality, and goes into great detail about what is required and how to avoid failure. If you work in operations and support you will find the material in this book invaluable - you should also buy copies for key members of the project team that is delivering your system so they have an understanding of and appreciation for the task of supporting their creation. While this book will obviously benefit shops that employ the Unified Process, the information and workflows are equally useful in any development approach.

I bought this book when I was promoted to team leader 6 months ago. This is a great collection of wisdom for the new manager, especially Chapter 7 - First Things First: A Project Manager's Primer. As this chapter says from the start, most people are promoted without much if any training. This is a good starting point. The close of the book - Chapter 45 - was also one of the highlights. This is Constantine's advice to new leaders and those who wish to become leaders. He makes a nice distinction between pure management, to which he claims to have nothing new to add, and leading software development.

The book is broken down into 6 areas (It's About People, Project Management, Under Pressue, Quality Required, Processes and Practices, and Leadership and Teamwork) each containing about 8 chapters. You may think that is a lot of ground to cover in a book, and it is. The chapters in Quality Required didn't seem to be as relavent to their area as the others did. Quality means a lot of different things to a lot of different people so this is difficult no doubt. I found the firt two and last two areas of the book to be the most helpful.

This may seem contradictory to the above paragraph, but I felt the book was too long. Compared to other books such as "The Manager Pool" and "Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering", this book is hard to finish in short bursts. Five pages was about tops for a chapter in the other books while it was typically the minimum for this book. That doesn't make Beyond Chaos a bad book. As I've said it has great information. Just don't expect to breeze through the information.

This book, consisting of short essays, had been sitting on my bookshelf for a long time. Finally, I picked it up when my summer vacation started and I actually felt sorry I hadn't done it earlier. Constantine and others present their thoughts about common problems in software development organizations and some methods to tackle these issues with. I keep nodding and sighing while reading the problem descriptions and keep on nodding as the authors proceed to how they have successfully solved the problems before. Good stuff!

Having been in the software development business for many years, I have experienced most of the situations that are described in this instructive series of essays. The writers of the articles in the book and the editor, Larry Constantine, are all long time practitioners in the field and bring share deep experience level with entertaining case studies and solid advice. Although some of the ideas are somewhat idealistic (programmers forming an international software guild to enforce standards), others are practical and immediately useful. Even if, for you, some of the articles are "preaching to the choir", they may give you a different way to explain something you may already be doing, or help with additional justification for using an approach that many managers of the "ready, fire, aim" school of management don't see the need for. This not to say that this is one of those "heavy methodology" books; it isn't.

It is disheartening when you see organizations make the same mistakes over and over. Readers of this book may be able to use some of the techniques described to keep their particular organization out of trouble. This book is an excellent and readable contribution to software development and software development management.

This book is a collection of Constantine's columns published in a variety of magazines. I was not familiar with his work previously, and this book shows why he was a successfuly columnist: In each of his 4-6 page chapters, he successfully drives a particular point home.

This book is probably not suitable as a text book for any particular topic, but it can get your thought process in various disciplines started. Since the chapters are very short and independent, it is ideally suited as bathroom or bedside reading material. What works a bit to the detriment of this strategy is that the chapters are sorted by topic; counterintuitive as this may sound, in a book like this, I would prefer for the topics to be mixed up.

A slight peeve is the unsealed paper binding of this book, which smudges easily. I hope publishers are reconsidering their use of this binding, which seems to be on the increase.

There are few books that discuss the social issues of software development. This book not only does that, but it has a well-rounded variety of topics.

You don't have to be interested in every topic to get something out of this book. I thought this book would have been worthwhile if I'd only been interested in one or two of the groups of topics.

Since this is a collection of his articles, the chapters tend to be short, so this is a book that tends to be fairly easy-to-read and appropriate for most of the people you might want to recommend it to.

Be forewarned. This book expresses very little original thought and is merely a collection of "other peoples" articles. This provides for very little logical flow for someone wanting to apply RUP. Where are the examples, tips of the trade, and how-to's?

Shame on me for not having gone to the book store first to look at the book as the online description gives no indication that it was in a periodical format.

I expected more from Scott after having read is other great "original thought" books.

The guy from Toronto got it right. This is a great book that collects really good articles written by some of my favorite writers. I first read the Construction Phase book then quickly bought this book and the Inception phase book and have found all three to be valuable. My company is trying to implement the RUP right now and struggled because there was clearly some missing techniques. This book series presents a lot of what is missing in the RUP, and it really helped us to fill in a lot of the missing stuff. Too bad Ambler and Constantine don't work for Rational.

This is a really great book. It goes into detail about an improved version of the lifecycle for the Unified Process, one that actually addresses the real world needs of most companies. Trying to use the RUP on multiple projects? Trying to have a common architecture between them? Worried about integrating with your legacy systems? This book covers these topics and more with some of the best articles ever published in Software Development magazine. I'm really into some of the philosophies of XP and as a result really liked the chapter on testing which presents a wide range of testing techniques and strategies. The A&D chapter included a really great article about distributed object design by Scott Ambler and one about Java interface design by Peter Coad, two topics critical for EJB development IMHO. The business modeling chapter was excellent, covering essential modeling, business rules, and a great UML article by Martin Fowler. It's amazing how this book collects some of the best material written by the best minds in the computer industry.

Personally, I can't imagine anyone adopting the RUP without first reading this book series. I think it's great that someone has gone to the effort to sort through the best articles written by some of the best minds in this industry. Kudos to Ambler and Constantine for having the courage to stand up and say what many others have been afraid to.

This book is great! As a hotshot developer who now finds himself in the ranks of management, this book is a life saver! It is harder and harder for me to get time to do all the reading I really need to do. This book brings together the articles with substance and then flavors the content with insightful editor review. Thanks for producing this series.

I appreciate this effort by Ambler & Constantine. It is hard for someone like me who has moved from hotshot developer to "visionary leader" (management) to keep up with all my reading. This series has been a blessing by consolidating the appropriate articles for me read. The contents give me many useful perspectives to consider. Thanks.

This is a great book that is part of a great book series. I wasn't sure that a collection of magazine articles was worth paying for, but this book is far more than that. It helps to put the Construction Phase of the RUP into context and actually goes beyond the vanilla version of the RUP to provide advice that I could actually use.

There was a lot of articles about storing objects in relational databases, an idea that put me off at first, but being on an EJB project right now I discovered that these articles really helped me out.

Constantine's not-so-subtle pokes at Microsoft prompted him to write "... I will most probably never get an invitation to lunch in Redmond with 'The Bill.'" Perhaps not, but Constantine's free-wheeling writing style and dead-on assessments will probably win over the majority of his readers.

The book is a collection of essays from Computer Language Magazine, Software Development, and other places. Each essay is only a few pages and easily digested in a couple of minutes. Yet, most are thought provoking, entertaining, and may prompt a day's worth of discussions.

Reading this, I sometimes felt like I was in a time machine. For example, here's an excerpt from a 1992 article in Computer Language Magazine. "Shortly after [Plauger] started Whitesmiths, Ltd., I visited him at their New York 'headquarters,' a small apartment in Manhattan... At each terminal were two programmers! Of course, only one programmer was actually cutting code at each keyboard, but the others were peering over their shoulders... The room buzzed with a steady stream of questions about the algorithm, or whether the initial value was correct, suggestions about how to break out of a loop, or drawing attention to a syntax error... After a while the two programmers would switch places, and the one at the keyboard would become the professional nudge."

Years before Beck and Fowler would discuss Extreme Programming, Plauger had his team inching towards that methodology. Constantine immediately recognized its potential.

Constantine also has other gems worth sharing. "The truth is, recognition and rewards of any kind are a lot less frequent than most managers think. Some 80% of managers claim they give their subordinates sincere and thorough praise, but only one out of seven of their subordinates see it that way."

In an article from 1994, Constantine suggests "I'm now beginning to think that usability has to be everyone's job, that everyone on the development team has to be focused on end-product usability and take it seriously from the first brainstorm to the final box." How much different would the products of the last few years be if companies had taken that advice?

The book has some flaws and Constantine doesn't get everything right. Then again, few who bravely predict the future do. A new version will be published this year, perhaps with material between 1995 and the present. If it retains the quality of this version, it will be easy to recommend.

This book was recomended for me from my teacher (very very clever woman) in Uni. And i am very happy to have such one.

Constantine shows to us, where is the problem in typical software development project. He brings to light all known problems, what are related to all managers. Fascinating, that we all know these problems, but we don't see it without a help from outside (in this case from Constantine).

From other side i don't like some things, what Constantine has postulated. I disagree to his idea about "cowboy's and cowgirl's" and maverick's. But all other stuff is perfect.

This book crosses many boundaries, intuitively feels "right", and inspires effort and excellence in those engaged in implementing business-oriented technological/software solutions (e.g. researchers, industrialists and consultants).

Over 30 articles cover: group development (decisions, roles, space, time management), cowboys and cowgirls (teams and mavericks), work organization (7 different models), tools and methods (CASE, modelling, HCI, methods), process improvements (visibility, reward & reuse, JIT, quality), software usability (consistentcy/conventions, complexity & scope creep, source, languages, usability, objects), and brave new software (interfaces, wizards, future faces).

Entertaining to read, with a depth of supported observations and guidance, this is a must-read together with the weightier thorough treatment of whichever methodology and toolset you use for your own business systems development.

I have heard very good things about this book and I already own it for 6 months. Still I haven't been able to read more than the first 100 pages. I generally have no trouble reading books that are written in English but this one is extremely hard to read. The sentences are way to long and a lot of the used words are unknown to foreign people. I also feel that the information could be presented in a better way. I rate 2 stars because I like what I have been able to read.

For anyone in the business of delivering usable software, the book 'Software for Use' by Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood is a must addition to their personal library. This book is wonderfully written in a very readable format (as would be expected from usability experts).

'Software for Use' embraces the key principles of usability in a very pragmatic way. The book is also 'in tune' with trends in the field of usability: moving to a more collaborative team model; addressing usability as a proactive design process rather than a reactive QA function; rethinking technology, tools, & techniques for the purpose of delivering user-centric software products - these are all fundamental aspects of how usability is maturing as a discipline.

One of things I enjoyed most about the book, was its hidden gems of wisdom embedded in each chapter. For example, in discussing the issues of marketability versus usability, the authors offer this simple maxim: "Design for use; refine for sale.... It is almost always far easier to make a functional but unaesthetic system attractive, than to take an attractive but impractical system and make it work."

If I had any criticisms about this book, there would be only one. As with many of today's practical guides, I find there is a recurring challenge with terminology. It is sometimes difficult to identify terms that are 'standard' versus those being introduced by the authors as new. As practitioners we rely heavily on the clarity of words to communicate tasks and deliverables. When applied terms are unfamiliar in context and origin, or they suggest double meaning, we introduce cost and confusion to the process of communication. This is not so much a criticism of the book as it is an observation of humankind, and our struggle to expand the English language.

As the authors themselves note, 'usability is not rocket science,' but it takes time and effort to achieve. Usability needs to be experienced before it can be standardized within an organization. That is why 'Software for Use' is such a good book - it is an experiential guide.

I very much enjoyed Software for Use. When I got the book, I read it from cover to cover. Now, six months later, I still turn to it regularly as I develop use cases for our application - especially when I'm working on the user interface for each use case.

You might expect that anything from Larry Constantine would be terrific and again he - this time with equally adept co-author Lucy Lockwood - hasn't let us down. SfU (as it seems to be called in the chat groups) addresses one of the most under-addressed issues in our industry: Why is so much potentially useful software in fact useless because of its appalling user interfaces?

There are lots of valuable topics in this book. But probably the most valuable thing that I got from the book was a methodical approach to developing user interfaces, through the user role maps, task models, essential use cases, use case narrative, tools and materials and ... well, perhaps you should read the book!

If you're in the mood for some edutainment (i.e. cheap laughs while learning something handy), read the section on Web wisdom. There you'll find some wonderfully silly interface designs to avoid on your next e-commerce project.

Bottom line: I'll bet this book's on the way to becoming a classic. It's a "must read" for every software developer involved in any way with software that's meant to be used. And if you're actually charged with developing user interfaces, I'd say it's a "must own".

This is a really great book. It goes into detail about an improved version of the lifecycle for the Unified Process, clearly the authors put some significant thought into it. What I really like is that this book collects some great articles from Software Development magazine that cover topics that the RUP barely covers if it touches them at all. For example there's an article on CRC modeling, a low tech way to model the classes within your problem space, which really does support one of the book's claims that the RUP's "use case driven" philosophy is questionable at best. They also make a valid point that you can test during the Inception Phase and go on to present several really excellent articles to that point. Ambler's Full Lifecycle Object-Oriented Testing (FLOOT) methodology is summarized in the testing chapter as well, a topic that they go into further detail in their other books. Karl Wiegers' article on customer rights and responsibilities really made sense to me, I'm into XP, so I went out and bought Wieger's book called Software Requirements as a result. Jim Highsmith and Lynne Nix's article on feasibility studies was also really good, along with all the others in this book. It's amazing how this book collects some of the best material written by the best minds in the computer industry.

Personally, I can't imagine anyone adopting the RUP without first reading this book series. I think it's great that someone has gone to the effort to sort through the best articles written by some of the best minds in this industry. Kudos to Ambler and Constantine for having the courage to stand up and say what many others have been afraid to.

This book presents some very interesting articles. Sure, they sometimes go beyond the original scope of the RUP but that's exactly why you need to read these books. We're implementing the RUP in my company and these books helped us to fill in the missing techniques. The new workflows, Infrastructure Management and Operations & Support, are right on the money. We've benefitted immensely from the concept of Infrastructure Management because it describes how to attain higher levels of reuse within our department, how to develop a shared architecture and enterprise requirements model that all projects can benefit from, and how to manage resources across multiple projects. The RUP only focuses on the development of a single project, which is okay, but it isn't what my company needed. Without Infrastructure Management the RUP is virtually useless to us. Too bad Ambler and Constantine don't work for Rational, because if they did the RUP might actually be usable.

Once again Scott Ambler has managed to bring together a well organized, detailed, view of a very complex topic. The Inception phase, has become a well worn reference book on my desk ( right nexdt to Scott's other Unified Process Books ).

I highly recommend this to anyone looking for insight into proven approached to problem solving. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

The Constantines are straightforward about the inherent limitations of their research (without which it deserves 5 stars), yet even these limits are enlightening. This is the single best book exploring the sociology, dynamics, philosophies, motivations, and pitfalls of group marriage. I consider this a prime addition for the bookshelf of any serious student of group marriage, alternate family structures, polyamory, communes, and responsible nonmonogamy.

I bought this book solely based on the greatness of another Page-Jones' book:"Practical Guide to Structured Systems Design". I figured that if this book was half as good as the "practical guide" was, my money would have been well spent.

This book is very inaccessible. It keeps you so deep in "buzz-word soup" that reader has to work very hard to understand his points. The examples are very abstract hard to follow.

I've been programming and designing systems using object-oriented languages for years. I can safely say that OO programmers do not anything in this book to be successful.

This is a good book, but it's been obsoleted by a newer version that uses the UML instead of the non-standard notation in this book. The new book is "Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML".

I already had a book from this writer (Meilir Page-Jones). So, I expect no less than high quality. I was not disappointed. This is one of the best books that I know of that can be bought about object-orientation. The problem with most other books, that is all other books that I have seen, is that they usually sink very quickly in the mud pool of the teeny weeny details of some object-oriented language. And before you know it the language syntax is discussed and the object-oriented principals are totally forgotten or at its best difficult to extract.

This writer never looses track of the subject he is trying to explain, namely: object-oriented design. As far as I can judge this is about the only book that succeeded to do this. This despite a lot of other books and highly acclaimed writers. On top of that this book is well structured, well built, and, God forbid, actually fun to read!

My advice, run to the bookstore and buy this book!