4 ms·

UML Diagrams are actually quite useful, sometimes you just need a structured way to reason about software.

• bluGill 8y ago
  There are two types of useful UML: The first is what I call whiteboard UML - it looks like any UML course except you draw it on a whiteboard, snap a picture on your phone and start implementing it. A couple weeks latter you realize that the design has diverged from the whiteboard so you delete the pictures. The whiteboard was useful for those two weeks to get the discussion started. The second is maintained, preferably automated. If you use viseo that means an entire team who's only job is to police the code to ensure everybody updates as change happens. Lesson: don't use viseo, use a tool that either generates your code (in C like languages this would be the header files), or a tool that imports the actually code to create diagrams. In either case the reason you do this is because every week you print the diagram out on poster paper and hang it on the wall of your cube/office. (if you are in an open floor plan UML is useless because you don't have a wall to hang it on).
  • megaman22 8y ago
    I suppose in an open office you could use your UML diagram printouts to make a cubicle. After a half a year or so, if you keep pasting them up on top of each other, you might start getting some sound-proofing effects.
  • vram22 8y ago
    When UML was more popular at the height of the OO(AD) frenzy, there was a tool from Peter Coad's company called TogetherJ. IIRC it could do round-tripping between UML and Java code. I think I tried the tool out but not that feature. TogetherSoft was later acquired by Borland, as I remember.
    • blattimwind 8y ago
      In IntelliJ you can refactor from UML views.
      • vram22 8y ago
        Interesting, will check that out.