systems analysis and design

I just finished a system analysis & design course with this text book. A through-semester project was also done. Actually, I had a chance to compare severals book on System Analysis & Design. My bottom line for this book is that this book is the one currently most worth to buy. Its throughful and easy-to-understand explanation for each SDLC step, how it's applied in real business situation and all possible tools for each step, such as CASE, JAD, DFDs, E-R diagrams (Flankly, i think ER diagrams of this book need more improvement..) and so on. All are really good to catch out clear concept to understand 'what is the system analysis & design' and 'how it works'. If you want to buy a book delivering clear concepts of system analysis and design and how it works in real business situation. I recommend this book. But, If you want very specific, in-dept or new-kids-on-the-block kind of topics for System analysis & design, I don't recommend.

This is a good book as these things go. It's not an easy read, for reasons I'm not all that sure why, but it's chock full of decent stuff. The chapters on logical & physical database design in particular make a hard slog out of what many already know intuitively.

There's the wiff of big IS departments about this book - an environment which has largely had its day. Real systems development just doesn't work as methodically or logically as presented here. I was, however, impressed with how the author would admit real-world reasons for why the presented theories don't always happen.

Its biggest problem is its size. A condensed version could take the most salient points and be half the size of this tome, and the rest could be put in another add-on book. It would be much easier to read physically, and probably seem less intimidating.

The index is pretty ordinary. If they ever do a 4th edition, this is one area that needs work. Terms like "Physical Context Diagram", "intelligent key" are dropped in the text, but not indexed. Actually, "intelligent key' is never even explained.

Jeffrey Hoffer put together a strong book with his co-authors. I have not only used this text in the class room, but have had Hoffer as a professor. Let me be the first to say that this man knows his stuff.

Beyond that, this book was amazing, it has covered anything in the systems analysis and design stages that I have seen and used in the real world.

Unfortunatly his focus during codeing programs, is on CASE rather than modelers (Which is becomming a stronger trend in more innovative, fast-paced markets).