Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to software development

Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by lmm on Thursday June 15, 2023 @05:21PM (#36346672)

We stopped doing that stuff because it was useless. We eliminated those practices and that profession because it was actively harmful to making good software. All those decision making methodologies consistently lead to worse technology choices than one dude actually trying to write some code with the thing for half an hour.

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Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by icedchai on Thursday June 15, 2023 @06:26PM (#36347537)

UML is mostly useless, but thinking ahead, even a bit, has value. I've seen stuff shipped in a sprint that was not used by any actual end users, only to be "redone" in the next sprint.

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Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by lmm on Thursday June 15, 2023 @06:42PM (#36347776)

My experience is that shipping stuff that doesn't get used by any actual end users is more often caused by thinking ahead too much than by thinking ahead too little.

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Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by icedchai on Thursday June 15, 2023 @07:05PM (#36348054)

I've actually seen it both ways: whole features (or even products) that were too early. But on the implementation level, I've seen someone pick the wrong thing (library, database, whatever) "because it was simple", only to have it be thrown out before getting any real usage.

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Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by kubanczyk on Friday June 16, 2023 @10:03AM (#36356760)

"Pick the wrong thing and then retract, losing some work" is as close to optimal as you can get. Iterate.

The much worse outcome is "pick a thing, fiercely defend it whether it helps the ship to float or to sink".

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Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by icedchai on Friday June 16, 2023 @10:36AM (#36357225)

I agree that outcome is worse. However, both extremes are bad. The optimal approach would be to do a little bit more work upfront, pick a "better" thing (where "better" is at least more than the next sprint or 3!), and use that.

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Re:Sequence diagrams, the only good thing UML brought to sof... by lmm on Friday June 16, 2023 @09:34PM (#36366286)

Even then I'm not sure. Sometimes the quickest way to discover the problems with something is to try it on the real product.

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