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Is UML Really Dead, Or Only Cataleptic?

Posted by kdawson on from the pining-for-the-fjords dept.

danielstoner writes "Recently UML was pronounced dead as a tool for all programming needs by an article posted on Little Tutorials: 13 reasons for UML's descent into darkness. The author suggests UML was killed by, among other causes, greed, heavy process, and design-by-committee. Is UML really a fading technology? Is it useful beyond a whiteboard notation for designers? Is there any value in code generation?"

3 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Annoying by Lord+Lode · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Uh yeah, I hated it too, I couldn't express things I wanted well in this strict language, and then there were the people who'd make ridiculous things consisting out of 4 different diagrams with blocks with words in them that contain no info (just repeating the title), and 1 stick figure and 1 arrow, for the most simple things, that made no sense at all except for laughing at. I can express things much better and make people understand it much better in free-to-do-what-you-want diagrams, than in UML.

  2. UML great for design by fragmentate · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We just don't let the executive team know we're using it, lest they read all the hype about it on the internet and get the idea we can draw the pictures and code just writes itself.

    We often find the "loopholes" in our methodology by drawing it out first. We plug those glaring holes. Then start coding. At that point, the UML becomes historical.

    --
    My ZooLoo
  3. Re:Just le by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't worry, there'll be jobs for people like you. I just spent time working on a two-year project where some cockfag consultants said they could spend 10 months creating the various UML diagrams, convert the diagrams to code in 1.5 months, test for two weeks, and deliver to the client.

    So what actually happened? They spent 18 months putting together various diagrams. They tried to automatically convert their diagrams to C++, and found that the closed-source code generation tool they were using crashed on the diagrams they had come up with. So they panicked and tried to write a conversion program themselves. After another three months of that bullshit, the managers canned those sorry assholes.

    My team was brought in, and we got their app finished in three months. We used Ruby, and didn't bother with C++ and especially not with UML. UML is shit, through and through. Any idea it can express can be expressed just as easily with a rough sketch on a napkin. And it should never be used for real application development of any sort. It always fails in this respect.