Ask HN: Do you still use UML? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#61

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:11 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #54

UML can be a great communication tool in specific situations but when it becomes a religion your organization will suffer. I'm older than most here, drank the cool-aid that predicted code generation and round tripping but spit it back up before the poison had a chance to set in. A bonus comment for the youngin's ... When you hear that some new system will allow "the common man" to write his own software without devel…

I drifted on the 2nd uml wave (~profiles, rup, bpmn, mof, you name it). The day I went back to compilation/graph/ml/lisp I cried of hapiness.

There's a lot to say about uml and the "model" approach history. One bit of trivia, I did my internship at an old IBM acquisition, that shop had made its own process/modeling philosophy with a dedicated environment in the 80s (the reason it got successul with some big clients thus IBM interest). Coming there I thought it would be yet another rational-like thing. But that old console program had live modeling relationship between layers, the model thang was implicit, a beautiful thing. Now replaced by whatever Eclipse based rational children IBM forced onto the teams now.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#62

Post by alemhnan » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:12 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56

alemhnan wrote: post #51

It is useful if you are able to generate code from it. I know one big software company (more than 3000 employee) that generate 90% of all it's code base (~20M lines of code).

I wonder how that company pulled this one off. In my experience, UML diagrams end up either too shallow to be useful for code generation, or so dense that they're totally useless for communication with non-technical stakeholders.

I don't know the details so I couldn't say. I was surprised as well to be honest. I talked briefly with one of the owners, he did know quite in a deep way what he was talking about. A lot of emphasis for the process, using new technologies but without the 'madness' that we see usually in the Javascript world.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#63

Post by mattmanser » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:12 PM UTC

No, nor have I seen any diagrams or had it mentioned to me by any other programmer for at least 5 years.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#64

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

febeling wrote: post #50

I use boxes-and-arrows sketches a lot. The UML which was so popular around 2000 was this detailed quasi-standard graphical language. It was very centred around being correct, and diagrams being of a specific type of a number of permissible types, and so on. And that whole part I never found to be too helpful. It is useful to draw ideas as graphics for people who's brains are wired visually. And it can makes nice figu…

I use to argue with a friend about this, I was so fed up with all the UML mystique, I wanted to release CarréFleches 1.0 (french for boxes and arrows, with the appropriate lack of grammar to mock the fluff behind UML).

Seems like everybody use the same "subset" that is graphs of things related to each others ... what a mystery.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#65

Post by burnt1ce » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:16 PM UTC

I like to draw UML every so often.

Question to HN: What tools do you guys use to draw UML diagrams?

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#66

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #60

smoyer wrote: post #54

UML can be a great communication tool in specific situations but when it becomes a religion your organization will suffer. I'm older than most here, drank the cool-aid that predicted code generation and round tripping but spit it back up before the poison had a chance to set in. A bonus comment for the youngin's ... When you hear that some new system will allow "the common man" to write his own software without devel…

The youngins say AI will solve this. They're wrong.

A human-like AI will sure solve this - because the only way for "common man" to make software without developers is to have something to do the work of dealing with complexity - figuring out the precise details, handling edge cases in a way consistent with the original intent, etc.

But why wait for a powerful AI, if you can hire / enslave developers today?

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#67

Post by JustSomeNobody » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:25 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #52

alemhnan wrote: post #51

It is useful if you are able to generate code from it. I know one big software company (more than 3000 employee) that generate 90% of all it's code base (~20M lines of code).

I bet they sell quality software..

No way of knowing unless we can exam it. Could be the best stuff ever.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#68

Post by JustSomeNobody » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:25 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #52

alemhnan wrote: post #51

It is useful if you are able to generate code from it. I know one big software company (more than 3000 employee) that generate 90% of all it's code base (~20M lines of code).

I bet they sell quality software..

No way of knowing unless we can exam it. Could be the best stuff ever.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#69

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:26 PM UTC

qznc wrote: post #48

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Modern features like lambdas "Modern" as in "Introduced to programming languages 35 years before the invention of UML, finally turning up in Java 20 years after the invention of UML"?

Yes. Why did the functional programming people need so long to convince the rest of the benefits?

For the same reason that it always takes conservative people long to understand the benefits of what they are fighting against?

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use UML?

#70

Post by coldcode » Sat, Nov 05, 2016, 1:40 PM UTC

I don't use UML, nor its predecessors going back to the early 1980's. I draw little pictures to ensure I understand what my code is/will do but that's it. Formal diagrams are as useful as formal documentation written wearing a formal suit.