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The "real reason"? MSFT was making too much money selling developer tools. If you automate app creation from specs (totally doable with UML for most CRUD apps),

The "real reason"? MSFT was making too much money selling developer tools. If you automate app creation from specs (totally doable with UML for most CRUD apps), then it would have greatly impacted Microsoft's revenue.

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
UML has died, because any attempt to build an application automatically from UML led to endless discussions about association vs. composition and generalization vs. implementation.
- slowmovintarget 6y ago
  Nah. The real reason was that framework evolution outpaced the ability of Model Driven Architecture tools to adapt to changing technology. I know, I used to work on one such MDA tool. It first started with the assumption that you want to generate a J2EE application. By the time the code generation was "good" Spring and Hibernate came along and simplified things to the point that it was easier and faster to "just code." Turning UML into executable code could be done in one of two ways. Transform one high-level model into an implementation-specific model and generate code from that, or, create a UML VM that could run the models directly. The latter would have been the correct solution, and still would be more complicated than it's worth. Use UML for communication. It's still good at that.
antonvs 6y ago
Many companies tried to automate app creation like that. The entire CASE industry mentioned in the article was working on that. Not one of them produced anything worth using. It was nothing to do with Microsoft. The real reason that UML died is that it was a solution in search of a problem that it could actually solve. It was one that had a lot of appeal for people, so it took longer to die than it should have. But it died because in practice, it was largely useless.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- intrasight 6y ago
  CASE is a very 1990s term - definitely deprecated. UML is awesome IMHO and I've used it on every CRUD app that I've built. I am saddened about it's lack of widespread use.
  - antonvs 6y ago
    The point about CASE is that there was a whole segment of the industry focused on addressing this problem, and it basically went nowhere. Today there are a zillion CRUD generator tools, most of which don't use UML. It's not difficult. Many people who've worked on CRUD apps have probably written some autogeneration thing themselves at some point. Automating some boilerplate code generation doesn't solve any challenging problem in software development.
willeh 6y ago
Can't tell if you're joking but one of the selling points of Microsofts paid versions of Visual Studio used to be good support for writing classes using UML. Microsoft is the O.g low-code company spending most of the 00s making people do things in diagrams and form builders of different kinds.
- intrasight 6y ago
  Partially joking. But really - MSFT has no incentive to reduce the required dev head count by tenfold.
  - rk06 6y ago
    they do. MSFT does not have monopoly on software. they compete with others. and have incentive to make life easier for their customers ... to destroy competitors
mikestew 6y ago
You base this theory on...? Because I worked at MSFT at the height of the UML craze, in the Developer Tools division to boot, and the "DevDiv must make money"[0] mandate didn't come down until after the industry had collectively decided to move on from UML. Additionally, who do you think was going to stand ready to sell you the tool that "automate(s) app creation from specs"? Ever see a copy of VS 2003-ish? Conspiracy theories are fun, but the "real" reason is in one of the several articles floating around HN that past few days. Mainly, it was a disorganized mess that no one was going to build tools for. Then IBM got hold of it, then... [0] Previously it was, "we don't care if it makes money as long as it supports the Windows platform", hence the "developers, developers, developers" from Ballmer that folks like to dunk on. I was a grunt in DevDiv, so take it all with a grain of salt.
- intrasight 6y ago
  Not a theory. I've heard it from MSFT product managers. > stand ready to sell you the tool There are a few - they've never been from MSFT
asplake 6y ago
The money motivation isn’t that relevant but there’s some truth here. I used to work for a CASE tool company and I have long attributed their decline to the rise of IDEs and other programmer productivity tools. And not a bad thing either.
Bigpet 6y ago
a spec precise enough to describe an "app" is a program. A person who creates such a spec is a programmer.

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago

UML has died, because any attempt to build an application automatically from UML led to endless discussions about association vs. composition and generalization vs. implementation.

slowmovintarget 6y ago
Nah. The real reason was that framework evolution outpaced the ability of Model Driven Architecture tools to adapt to changing technology. I know, I used to work on one such MDA tool. It first started with the assumption that you want to generate a J2EE application. By the time the code generation was "good" Spring and Hibernate came along and simplified things to the point that it was easier and faster to "just code." Turning UML into executable code could be done in one of two ways. Transform one high-level model into an implementation-specific model and generate code from that, or, create a UML VM that could run the models directly. The latter would have been the correct solution, and still would be more complicated than it's worth. Use UML for communication. It's still good at that.

antonvs 6y ago

Many companies tried to automate app creation like that. The entire CASE industry mentioned in the article was working on that. Not one of them produced anything worth using. It was nothing to do with Microsoft. The real reason that UML died is that it was a solution in search of a problem that it could actually solve. It was one that had a lot of appeal for people, so it took longer to die than it should have. But it died because in practice, it was largely useless.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
intrasight 6y ago
CASE is a very 1990s term - definitely deprecated. UML is awesome IMHO and I've used it on every CRUD app that I've built. I am saddened about it's lack of widespread use.
- antonvs 6y ago
  The point about CASE is that there was a whole segment of the industry focused on addressing this problem, and it basically went nowhere. Today there are a zillion CRUD generator tools, most of which don't use UML. It's not difficult. Many people who've worked on CRUD apps have probably written some autogeneration thing themselves at some point. Automating some boilerplate code generation doesn't solve any challenging problem in software development.

willeh 6y ago

Can't tell if you're joking but one of the selling points of Microsofts paid versions of Visual Studio used to be good support for writing classes using UML. Microsoft is the O.g low-code company spending most of the 00s making people do things in diagrams and form builders of different kinds.

intrasight 6y ago
Partially joking. But really - MSFT has no incentive to reduce the required dev head count by tenfold.
- rk06 6y ago
  they do. MSFT does not have monopoly on software. they compete with others. and have incentive to make life easier for their customers ... to destroy competitors

mikestew 6y ago

You base this theory on...? Because I worked at MSFT at the height of the UML craze, in the Developer Tools division to boot, and the "DevDiv must make money"[0] mandate didn't come down until after the industry had collectively decided to move on from UML. Additionally, who do you think was going to stand ready to sell you the tool that "automate(s) app creation from specs"? Ever see a copy of VS 2003-ish? Conspiracy theories are fun, but the "real" reason is in one of the several articles floating around HN that past few days. Mainly, it was a disorganized mess that no one was going to build tools for. Then IBM got hold of it, then... [0] Previously it was, "we don't care if it makes money as long as it supports the Windows platform", hence the "developers, developers, developers" from Ballmer that folks like to dunk on. I was a grunt in DevDiv, so take it all with a grain of salt.

intrasight 6y ago
Not a theory. I've heard it from MSFT product managers. > stand ready to sell you the tool There are a few - they've never been from MSFT

asplake 6y ago

The money motivation isn’t that relevant but there’s some truth here. I used to work for a CASE tool company and I have long attributed their decline to the rise of IDEs and other programmer productivity tools. And not a bad thing either.

Bigpet 6y ago

a spec precise enough to describe an "app" is a program. A person who creates such a spec is a programmer.