Passed IBM 486 with 90%

[Dave Cronin]

I took the IBM 486 OOAD with UML exam today, very pleased with the score as well. The topics on the exam are quite tricky, and took a fair amount of studying. The most useful study materials I used were:
UML and Patterns (Craig Larman)
UML Distilled (Martin Fowler)
Use Case Modeling (Bittner and Spence)
The Unified Modeling Language User Guide (Booch)
Whizlabs 486 Exam Simulator
Also of some use were:
Object Design (Wirfs-Brock and McKean)
The Unified Software Development Process (Jacobsen)
Developing Software with UML (Oestereich)
Writing Effective Use Cases (Cockburn)

[Howard Kushner]

Congratulations Dave,
It's good to see the usual names like Fowler, Larman, and Booch, but it's also cool to see others that I have not seen in a while, like 'specially Rebecca Wirfs-Brock. I always thought her book from circa 1990 was soooo kewl!
Doing that well on the ole 486 shows that you prob'ly have a talent fer modeling and thinking logically about business problems in a way that increases your value to your customers and end-users. Rock on dude!

[Dave Cronin]

Thanks Howard. There are various other books on object-oriented design I didn't mention, but the recent book Object Design (2003) by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock looked interesting enough to get a copy from Amazon. It covers the principles of design software objects very well. It doesn't match the IBM 486 syllabus as well as Larman's book, but then Wirfs-Brock's book is well worth a read anyway, and helped me to think in terms of objects better. For example the book covers the Double Dispatch design pattern very well using the game paper, scissors and rock. (Rocking on there!)
After doing this exam I think that good object-oriented design involves a lot of difficult concepts, and it's no wonder that a lot of projects don't get it quite right. However, it is worth persevering to understand OO since the concepts do make sense - eventually.

[Axel Janssen]

great score. congrats.
just add some books/material I find useful:
- lots of good material can be found in a yahoo-group called ooad_meda.
- book Arlow, Neustadt, UML and the unified process.
article
- http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2003/jw-0905-toolbox.html?
Lecture was good motivation for me to strive for a stricter and less half-hearted ooa/d-process.