"Problem Frames: Analyzing and Structuring Software Development Problems" (Addison-Wesley; ISBN 0-201-59627-X) by Michael Jackson is a book that promotes itself as a must-have book.

My understanding of this book is that the message of the book is basically: we spend too much time focusing on the solution, we need to divide the problem domain from the solution domain and here is how we should do this. Unfortunately, the author's verbose and boring writing style takes over 350 pages to do this. If you want an example of the writing in this book, just go to Amazon and read the Preface.

The back cover says "Michael Jackson has taken the mysticism that surrounds design patterns and constructed a much more accessible technique utilizing a frame metaphor." My feeling from the book was that the first half is correct, but would change the second half to "and constructed a much less accessible technique utilizing a frame metaphor." When I first saw design patterns, I understood what they were about instantly with needing to read a book. I read a whole book on problem frames, I thought it was a lot of extra work with little to no gain.

For a must-have book, I sure didn't feel like I needed to have it. In fact, I wish I could regain the time I spent reading this book.