This book is meant to serve pedagogical and practical purposes by presenting a process called Bridge, which instantiates generic aspects of software methods including iteration and traceability. It also presents seven case studies documented in Unified Modeling Language (UML). The process and case studies are preceded by an overview of object-oriented modeling artifacts that act as a background for developing the concepts in the process and for presenting the case studies.

The book is appealing for a variety of readers because it provides a comprehensive view of modeling artifacts and how they fit together in an iterative context to provide working solutions. The approach that it adopts has the advantage of cutting down the learning curve and of bridging the gap between theory and practice. Readers will learn from the experience of other developments. The underlying theme is that a considerable amount of learning is achieved through practical applications of the theories involved; teaching object-oriented development could be made more effective by relying on documented practices.

This book is adequate for an introduction to object-oriented software development for pedagogical, training, and practical purposes. The first part is appropriate for a course on object-oriented development, whereas the second part on the case studies provides the meat for technical training. In addition, we believe that novices in practical contexts would benefit from this book, which cuts down the learning curve. Software engineers seeking to add rigor to their techniques would also find this book useful.