I have not read any of the earlier editions of this book, so I can only assume that, like the software processes it describes, this book has now been through a number of iterations that have reviewed and refined its content. This book reads well - it is clear, concise and relevant; every chapter feels well thought out and thorough.

I had imagined this book to be a blatant advert for IBM's Rational products but was pleasantly surprised to find that the software tools themselves were only briefly mentioned as part of a tools summary towards the end of every chapter, explaining which products would be suitable for implementing and ensuring the success of the processes discussed.

The introductory chapters of the book summarise the disciplines involved in a unified process development cycle and place the disciplines in the context of an iterative model, and the RUP phases of development.

Later chapters go into more detail of the roles, artefacts and processes covered by each of the development disciplines such as Business Modelling, Implementation and Testing.

The book makes good use of UML workflow diagrams to explain all of the roles, artefacts and processes that it discusses; this tends to make each chapter come together. The book comes with a foldout poster of all of the disciplines that contains these workflow diagrams, and that places each discipline at the appropriate point in the phase/iteration model. I am not sure how useful this poster would be unless you were trying to convince your colleagues to use the RUP.

I do not think that this book would be a sole point of reference if you were planning on conducting a development project using the RUP; however, it is a very clear introduction to the topic. It prompts thought in some areas of design, implementation and integration that may seem like common sense, but on which we would probably all benefit from some guidance.