The use of component technology seems to be taking off in large companies and is perhaps succeeding where Object Orientation never really took off, except for those on the bleeding edge. In part it can be attributed to Microsoft and the success of Visual Basic in particular.

This book is written by two of the leading figures at Select, whose main product is primarily a modelling tool. The focus, as one would probably expect from a vendor, is not on the industry trend towards components but their product's support for component based development, the so-called Select Perspective.

The book in that respect is almost a tour de force of some of the most popular modelling techniques and there are chapters devoted to business process, use case, class, object interaction and state modelling. However, it doesn't stop there - business oriented component modelling, component modelling of legacy assets and deployment modelling. In short it is a good advert for their product if you believe that those techniques are useful.

So who might like this book? Developers will find no code but they and analysts and managers, will see a useful selection of modelling techniques well explained and with some good worked examples. There are useful titbits of lessons learned scattered throughout the text and this adds a level of authority to what some might consider a very superficial treatment of so many techniques in a book of less than 500 pages. In short it is a good advert for their product and in the process usefully explains and summarises a number of 'modern' modelling techniques.