Allow me to rephrase: UML modeling tools will generate code that fulfills your model. You'll get more-or-less complete headers, with your objects and method p

Allow me to rephrase: UML modeling tools will generate code that fulfills your model. You'll get more-or-less complete headers, with your objects and method prototypes, and you'll get implementation stubs. If your design is sound, then the process of filling in the guts of the implementation can be quick and straightforward (ideally, but I find this usually pans out in practice). If your project requires code to come from UML, then any architectural changes are made in the UML tool, not directly in code. This means that the model is always accurate. In my company, the models are the primary documentation; if you need to know how a module works, you can look at the model and see every object, attribute, and relationship, both within the module and to other pieces of the project. And unlike every other piece of documentation I have ever seen, these models are guaranteed to be accurate, because they literally write the code. A process like this requires you to think -- a lot -- about the design of your program before you even open a text editor or IDE. That's what I mean by a mandatory design phase.