* Mistaking UML as a programming language (see, we can write all our software in UML!)
* Code generation (see above, except you still have to write all the code since all you got was a bunch of empty interfaces)
* The One True Technical Artifact (all you need for design documentation is a big tangle of UML!, for which the source file is lost to time and can thus never be updated)
* Satisfying managerial dictates (OK, we'll hack out some not-very-accurate UML diagrams since management says we have to, which is worse than useless--it's misleading)
* corollary to the above: The Enterprise UML Repository (commit one or more of the sins above, plus you're forced to use substandard tools and platforms!)
Good uses of UML:
* Explaining someone else's spaghetti code after you've hacked your way through it
* Explaining your own spaghetti code that was forced out the door before you had time to clean it up
* Explaining justifiably complex algorithms and architectures
* Illustrating important design decisions
* Communicating overall architecture to executives and new developers
* As a common whiteboard language when sussing out technical and/or architectural issues
Note that all of the good uses are all communication tools, only barely design tools, and definitely not programming tools. +1 for UmlAsSketch above.
<small>(PS please tell me someone is working on list formatting for news.arc...)</small>
* BDUF http://c2.com/xp/BigDesignUpFront.html
* Mistaking UML as a programming language (see, we can write all our software in UML!)
* Code generation (see above, except you still have to write all the code since all you got was a bunch of empty interfaces)
* The One True Technical Artifact (all you need for design documentation is a big tangle of UML!, for which the source file is lost to time and can thus never be updated)
* Satisfying managerial dictates (OK, we'll hack out some not-very-accurate UML diagrams since management says we have to, which is worse than useless--it's misleading)
* corollary to the above: The Enterprise UML Repository (commit one or more of the sins above, plus you're forced to use substandard tools and platforms!)
Good uses of UML:
* Explaining someone else's spaghetti code after you've hacked your way through it
* Explaining your own spaghetti code that was forced out the door before you had time to clean it up
* Explaining justifiably complex algorithms and architectures
* Illustrating important design decisions
* Communicating overall architecture to executives and new developers
* As a common whiteboard language when sussing out technical and/or architectural issues
Note that all of the good uses are all communication tools, only barely design tools, and definitely not programming tools. +1 for UmlAsSketch above.
<small>(PS please tell me someone is working on list formatting for news.arc...)</small>