Has anyone used UML?

[David LeBlanc]

In article <3B250921.F9F1D571 at bt.com>, alan.gauld at bt.com says...
> Mats Wichmann wrote:
> > Yes, it's kind of interesting that way.  Three of the main
> > practitioners of OO methodologies and modeling strategies all ended up
> > working for Rational,  leaving them with the odd situation of having
> > the proponents of three different modelling schemes on staff.  
> 
> Not true! Rumbaugh and then Jacobson specifically joined 
> Rational to create the UML. By the time they joined they 
> already recognised the need for a unifying language.

wellll.... actually Rational bought both Rumbaugh's and Ivarson's 
companies and they came along with the sale. From what I hear there is a 
good deal of not so cordial dislike between/among the "3 amigos" 
carefully hidden from the hoi poli of course.

> Rational Rose(the CASE tool) already existed (indeed was at 
> version 2 at least) and was based on Booch's notation. The 
> first version to support UML still had Booch as default...
> 
> > all...  on the other hand, it may be that Rational Rose really is
> > "that damn good" (personally, I have zero experience with it).
> 
> When it first appeared (around 1992) it was the best thing 
> available - almost the only thing available - for "round 
> trip engineering". ie You could draw a design, generate code, 
> modify the code and then suck the code changes back into 
> your design. First time I saw that I was astounded at how 
> good it was. Nowadays several tools do the same tricks 
> - with pretty much equally unsuccessful results! But they 
> are all better than nothing for a significant sized project.
> 
> Likewise they are all overkill for a small one!
> 
> Alan g.
> 
For all the ado about UML, there seems to be few competitors to Rose, at 
least that i'm aware of and, unlike most good innovations in the computer 
world, there has been little trickle-down of quality software to the 
generic small-shop programmer level. Perhaps that's due to little 
competition, the perception that one doesn't have the time to actually do 
decent design in today's competitive market and that abomination called 
XP (development by comittee - oh please - it's what the Japanese are 
working hard to get away from!)