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UML never died because it never lived. It was always a zombie kept alive by Rational Software doing a really good job of generating enough hype, and market shar

UML never died because it never lived. It was always a zombie kept alive by Rational Software doing a really good job of generating enough hype, and market share, to sell to IBM for $3.1 billion. Since Rational was sold in 2003, UML has just been lurching from one generation of engineers to another shouting 'braaaiiins'. Trying to discuss UML objectively without the context of who was selling what at the time is pointless. It was never a good enough method to live beyond being kept on life support by the marketers.

agumonkey 5y ago
You forgot the omg thing. Quite a few efforts were made for their uml super set.
- Delphiza 5y ago
  Yes. Lurching from one OMG committee to the next shouting 'braaaiiins' :)
ncmncm 5y ago
This. Back then, anything that could be used to increase a manager's department budget could be the basis for a business. There was a job, "System Analyst", whose output was supposed to be stuff like that. Programmers were supposed to just code what the diagrams System Analysts produced said, and not try to think. There is still an ISO Standard for regular flowcharts, and lots of DoD contracts require delivery of ISO Standard Flowcharts, so there are tools to automatically generate flowcharts from source code, which are printed out, delivered, and dropped in file drawers in dusty warehouses. Every five or ten years ISO issues a new Flowchart Standard. It has been suggested that they issue a Standard that says any old blank sheet of paper meets the Standard, to save a lot of money on printing them out and storing them. It hasn't happened yet. It would not be surprising if there were a zombie ISO UML Standard, and contracts requiring software be delivered with conforming UML.
- bluGill 5y ago
  The problem is system analyst is a useful job only if they don't have to worry about all the details of the helpers and incidental data field and can focus on the high level parts that matter. In the mean time programmers need to add those little helper classes as implementation details, and they instead of to spend a week doing some formal request to the system analyst for something that could be done in an hour if they were allowed to think. And of course programmers have to think anyway.
didericis 5y ago
Maybe I’m getting primed to be eaten by zombies by saying this, but I think UML was trying to do something valuable. A tool which could create visual diagrams for logic flow and abstraction would be amazing. After parsing a large project, many people create a mental map which feels quite close to some sort of visual diagram. If someone could figure out how to represent those models visually, I think it’d be a lot easier to identify good abstractions for a problem and its likely evolution vs bad abstractions for a problem and its likely evolution.
- bluGill 5y ago
  The problem is keeping those diagrams correct. I've worked where the UML was the code, and it worked because the visual models were up to date. Every monday I'd print on poster sized paper the latest models to paste on my cube wall. They were good enough for the rest of the week, but by the next week there were different enough as to be worthless. I've never seen UML actually work anyplace else. Either the models are out of date, or they are only up to date because you force people to go back to maintain the models after the code is working. This latter of course fails, why would management want to pay someone do maintain models when not only is the code working (well at least partially) for the testers, but the person who is assigned to do it doesn't want to.
  - kragen 5y ago
    What were the advantages and disadvantages of programming in UML rather than, for example, Java or Python? In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26959307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26959307 I blasted it as "a fraud" because of clearly exaggerated claims made for its power that went far beyond anything available; how did its power compare in practice to other programming languages?
    - bluGill 5y ago
      Another Turing complete language. The one I used compiled to unreadable c++. It was easier to see the big picture because all the models were visible. However in the end it is all syntax.
fargle 5y ago
I wholeheartedly agree. UML never really lived, and I will say the reason is that it doesn't solve a problem that needs solving. It's supposed to be a universal (visual) language. Two problems, in the real world the way it was used and, more often than not, misused it was far from universal. I mean that deployment diagram is really kinda of more of an object diagram or class diagram, except for wait why are you using the open arrows there??? What? Guess what? I can draw things in visio too. If I want to describe a sequence, I can draw a timeline or sequence diagram-like without any ritually specialized visual nomenclature. And it would be a lot more universally understood because nobody really knows the fine details of UML in the first place. The fact that what I mean by arrows and boxes is unique to the situation and not a standard does not in any way reduce my ability to describe and communicate a design with arrows and boxes. Communicating a design via words, language, OR graphics is an art and it is not helped by a crude "universal" visual nomenclature that is in reality widely misused. Secondly, nomenclature isn't the problem in the first place. Design is. Communication of the design is too. UML is more of a hindrance to these than a benefit. It's like the difference between a fine art portrait and an Identikit in the hands of a random wage slave with bad taste.

agumonkey 5y ago

You forgot the omg thing. Quite a few efforts were made for their uml super set.

Delphiza 5y ago
Yes. Lurching from one OMG committee to the next shouting 'braaaiiins' :)

ncmncm 5y ago

This. Back then, anything that could be used to increase a manager's department budget could be the basis for a business. There was a job, "System Analyst", whose output was supposed to be stuff like that. Programmers were supposed to just code what the diagrams System Analysts produced said, and not try to think. There is still an ISO Standard for regular flowcharts, and lots of DoD contracts require delivery of ISO Standard Flowcharts, so there are tools to automatically generate flowcharts from source code, which are printed out, delivered, and dropped in file drawers in dusty warehouses. Every five or ten years ISO issues a new Flowchart Standard. It has been suggested that they issue a Standard that says any old blank sheet of paper meets the Standard, to save a lot of money on printing them out and storing them. It hasn't happened yet. It would not be surprising if there were a zombie ISO UML Standard, and contracts requiring software be delivered with conforming UML.

bluGill 5y ago
The problem is system analyst is a useful job only if they don't have to worry about all the details of the helpers and incidental data field and can focus on the high level parts that matter. In the mean time programmers need to add those little helper classes as implementation details, and they instead of to spend a week doing some formal request to the system analyst for something that could be done in an hour if they were allowed to think. And of course programmers have to think anyway.

didericis 5y ago

Maybe I’m getting primed to be eaten by zombies by saying this, but I think UML was trying to do something valuable. A tool which could create visual diagrams for logic flow and abstraction would be amazing. After parsing a large project, many people create a mental map which feels quite close to some sort of visual diagram. If someone could figure out how to represent those models visually, I think it’d be a lot easier to identify good abstractions for a problem and its likely evolution vs bad abstractions for a problem and its likely evolution.

bluGill 5y ago
The problem is keeping those diagrams correct. I've worked where the UML was the code, and it worked because the visual models were up to date. Every monday I'd print on poster sized paper the latest models to paste on my cube wall. They were good enough for the rest of the week, but by the next week there were different enough as to be worthless. I've never seen UML actually work anyplace else. Either the models are out of date, or they are only up to date because you force people to go back to maintain the models after the code is working. This latter of course fails, why would management want to pay someone do maintain models when not only is the code working (well at least partially) for the testers, but the person who is assigned to do it doesn't want to.
- kragen 5y ago
  What were the advantages and disadvantages of programming in UML rather than, for example, Java or Python? In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26959307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26959307 I blasted it as "a fraud" because of clearly exaggerated claims made for its power that went far beyond anything available; how did its power compare in practice to other programming languages?
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Another Turing complete language. The one I used compiled to unreadable c++. It was easier to see the big picture because all the models were visible. However in the end it is all syntax.

fargle 5y ago

I wholeheartedly agree. UML never really lived, and I will say the reason is that it doesn't solve a problem that needs solving. It's supposed to be a universal (visual) language. Two problems, in the real world the way it was used and, more often than not, misused it was far from universal. I mean that deployment diagram is really kinda of more of an object diagram or class diagram, except for wait why are you using the open arrows there??? What? Guess what? I can draw things in visio too. If I want to describe a sequence, I can draw a timeline or sequence diagram-like without any ritually specialized visual nomenclature. And it would be a lot more universally understood because nobody really knows the fine details of UML in the first place. The fact that what I mean by arrows and boxes is unique to the situation and not a standard does not in any way reduce my ability to describe and communicate a design with arrows and boxes. Communicating a design via words, language, OR graphics is an art and it is not helped by a crude "universal" visual nomenclature that is in reality widely misused. Secondly, nomenclature isn't the problem in the first place. Design is. Communication of the design is too. UML is more of a hindrance to these than a benefit. It's like the difference between a fine art portrait and an Identikit in the hands of a random wage slave with bad taste.