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Grady Booch On Software Engineering
aebrain writes "Grady Booch is one of the Big Names in Software Engineering. If you use OOP or UML you're making use of his work. There's an interview with him on .NET that's interesting reading ('Language was once Key - Now it's Design'). Lots about the impedence mismatch between SQL and OOP, what the future holds re .NET and Java, and when UML modelling isn't appropriate."
There's less of an "impedance mismatch" in languages where OO is real OO and doesn't suck - e.g. Common Lisp + UnCommonSQL is pretty impressive.
That sounds alot like something certain members of the craftwork industry might have said around the time the power loom was invented.
The biggest problem I see with "executable UML" is that in order to make it detailed enough to be executable, you have to insert tons of detail into the UML model. There is a point where it is easier for some (perhaps most) developers to work with those details as code instead of as a sprawling set of diagrams.
IOW, just because you can program entirely with diagrams, does not necessarily mean you should.
I will agree that some people prefer diagram-based programming, and a tool called LabView has been doing this for years. It tends to match electronic circuit diagrams, so e. engineers grok it fairly quickly. Whether it makes them more productive than those who master code is hard to say.
Perhaps some shops that can hire people who think alike can go diagrams galore, put I don't think it will fly everywhere. Some linguistical people probably think in code no matter what.
Table-ized A.I.