Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML??

From:
Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Sat, 21 Jul 2012 19:49:34 +0200
Message-ID:
<a708e2Fch4U1@mid.individual.net>
On 21.07.2012 19:16, Wanja Gayk wrote:

In article <a6subnFf45U1@mid.individual.net>, shortcutter@googlemail.com
says...

Graphical programming (what these round trip tools promise to be able
to do) does not work. The mere fact that you need to have every part
of the code in the diagram leads to diagram overload.


I have professionally worked with a framework that tries to do this, so
I've got a bit experience in that. It works remarkably well.


I'd love to learn the name of the tool you used.

What we were doing, when we were using the tool, was to model the
database entities in detail as class diagrams, but for the activity
diagrams we had to keep as much technical detail out of the diagrams as
possible and abstract a lot.


What does that mean? Are your activity diagrams disconnected from the
Java code?

We described the broad business decisions
only and coded the detail like you've been doing it all the time: In
plain old Java. For conditionals, the framework generated a hook method
from the diagram, which we filled with life. For each activity a view
was generated by the framework, which we could customize using a UI-
designer and Java.


Do you mean view as in MVC? What kind of application are we talking
about here?

It's very convenient, as long as you don't try to squeeze everything
into one diagram.


Obviously.

The only drawback is that you're virtually always
short of screen estate.


:-)

And btw., roundtrip tools don't help much with updating diagrams which
are sitting in text documents.


We've not put the diagrams onto paper. All we modelled and talked about
was stored in model-files that the system held in sync with the
software.


I wasn't specifically talking about paper. Did you include diagrams in
text documents (design documents) which explained the rationale of the
design in a more reader friendly way? If yes, how did you deal with
updating diagrams? If not, how did you convey the essence of the design
to other people (new team members etc.)?

Kind regards

    robert

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