Best book available on UML for newbie.

Hello,

I am looking for a good book on UML diagrams. I have been designing applications/systems for a while yet I am new to using UML. I feel that UML diagrams (Activity, Sequence, Class, Interaction) diagrams are The Way for creating proper and good design as well as to document them.

I am in search for a book which will guide me through the steps (preferably with examples) from scratch to completion. Could anybody suggest what they have used?

Cheers,
Raj.

I found UML Distilled by Martin Fowler to be simple, compact and yet covers all the UML diagrams.

I also referred to Learning UML by O'Reilly publications which was also kind of good. Both of these books are short unlike other UML books which span over lots of pages.

Raj Kamal wrote:
I am in search for a book which will guide me through the steps (preferably with examples) from scratch to completion. Could anybody suggest what they have used?

UML diagrams are such that one cannot instruct or clearly state the steps for scratch to completion. You have to understand the diagrams and use them as and when required. Not all diagrams are useful. Even I was in this impression, but later realized that there is no fixed approach.

Thanks for your invaluable advice Mohammed.

By "scratch to completion" I was referring to Design of an application. I understand that there can be no fixed approach but since I have to get the basics right, I wanted to go as suggested by a good book/material on the same.

Cheers,
Raj.