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I think the issues with UML and any technique of top/down design is that it doesn't recognize the bidirectional influence of design. The interface influences t

I think the issues with UML and any technique of top/down design is that it doesn't recognize the bidirectional influence of design. The interface influences the implementation and the implementation details influences the interface. Similarly, the whole influences the unit, and the unit influences the whole. You can only design working software if it takes into account both directions, software design has to simultaneously take into account top/down and bottom/up concerns. I think people realized this, and so when you start, it makes more sense to only have a rough top/down draft of the design, since once you implement you'll need to refactor the design anyways from the concerns that appeared from the implementation details. UML therefore became a waste of time, since half of it would change anyways by the time the project shipped.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I agree with your point, but I don't know that I'd blame UML for that, I'd blame people. It still happens today without UML, it's just moved from flow diagrams to powerpoint and word presentations.
bluGill 4y ago
I worked briefly for a place that generated code from UML. The code itself was ugly C++, but I never looked at it so who cares. Every week the first thing I did was print out the UML on large paper and paste it on my wall. It was nice to see everything on my wall like that, but just one week of one programmer time and what was on the wall was already obsolete in some critical way. One important part of UML is the layout. Every week I.made a minor tweak to how the boxes were on the page so things looked nice. Every few months a larger change to layout. Since then I've been to a lot of places where people ask for UML, but since there is no way to synchronize the code and UML the UML is left to rot. We could keep it up to date and i'd love it, but that means one full time graphical person for every two developers. I don't think UML is worth it unless it is the code.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

I agree with your point, but I don't know that I'd blame UML for that, I'd blame people. It still happens today without UML, it's just moved from flow diagrams to powerpoint and word presentations.

bluGill 4y ago

I worked briefly for a place that generated code from UML. The code itself was ugly C++, but I never looked at it so who cares. Every week the first thing I did was print out the UML on large paper and paste it on my wall. It was nice to see everything on my wall like that, but just one week of one programmer time and what was on the wall was already obsolete in some critical way. One important part of UML is the layout. Every week I.made a minor tweak to how the boxes were on the page so things looked nice. Every few months a larger change to layout. Since then I've been to a lot of places where people ask for UML, but since there is no way to synchronize the code and UML the UML is left to rot. We could keep it up to date and i'd love it, but that means one full time graphical person for every two developers. I don't think UML is worth it unless it is the code.