Bad (and all too common) uses of UML: * BDUF http://c2.com/xp/BigDesignUpFront.html http://c2.com/xp/BigDesignUpFront.html * Mistaking UML as a programming la

Bad (and all too common) uses of UML: * BDUF http://c2.com/xp/BigDesignUpFront.html http://c2.com/xp/BigDesignUpFront.html * Mistaking UML as a programming language (see, we can write all our software in UML!) * Code generation (see above, except you still have to write all the code since all you got was a bunch of empty interfaces) * The One True Technical Artifact (all you need for design documentation is a big tangle of UML!, for which the source file is lost to time and can thus never be updated) * Satisfying managerial dictates (OK, we'll hack out some not-very-accurate UML diagrams since management says we have to, which is worse than useless--it's misleading) * corollary to the above: The Enterprise UML Repository (commit one or more of the sins above, plus you're forced to use substandard tools and platforms!) Good uses of UML: * Explaining someone else's spaghetti code after you've hacked your way through it * Explaining your own spaghetti code that was forced out the door before you had time to clean it up * Explaining justifiably complex algorithms and architectures * Illustrating important design decisions * Communicating overall architecture to executives and new developers * As a common whiteboard language when sussing out technical and/or architectural issues Note that all of the good uses are all communication tools, only barely design tools, and definitely not programming tools. +1 for UmlAsSketch above. <small>(PS please tell me someone is working on list formatting for news.arc...)</small>