Re: UML

[Bill Kerney <ucsd.wkerney@edu>]

I think part of my dislike for UML stems from the crap that Howden made
us do for CSE110. Basically, it is nothing more than those drawings you
make for yourself, except they are standardized, so that when you draw a
box with a tabbed corner and a squiggly line with an asterisk pointing
at another box, it means something specific as opposed to something you
dreamed up at the time.

I guess it is ok (since you can share your squiggly lines with other
coders and have them know what you mean) but nothing I've read in
Software Engineering has any real world application beyond "Be sure to
comment your code" and similar other trivial aphorisms. Heck, I've even
Proved a algorithm to be correct... and it was still wrong. Not from
coding error or screwing up the proof - it was just wrong.

You can read the UML specification at:
http://www.rational.com/uml/resources/documentation/index.jtmpl

I think rational.com makes some UML tools.

-Bill K

Brian Degenhardt wrote:
> 
> This sounds kind of cool though.  Why is it yuck?  I always do some sort
> of pseudo diagram of whatever I'm coding anyways, it would be nice to be
> able to generate some code from it.
> 
> On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Bill Kerney wrote:
> 
> > It is actuslly complex enough that if you draw a good UML diagram in
> > something like Visio Pro, it will actually generate source code for you.
> >
> > Still - yuck.
> >
> > -Bill