The Metalevel

Via Jordi Cabot I found a quite interesting comment made by one of the “Three Amigos” about UML usage in his blog-post titled Taking the temperature of UML:

“Still, UML has become complex and clumsy. For 80% of all software only 20% of UML is needed. However, it is not easy to find the subset of UML which we would call the “Essential” UML. We must make UML smarter to use.”

Ivar Jacobson

The full post is a good review about the origins, the growth, and the current status of UML made by one of its three fathers. Ivar also argues about the current size of UML (really fat nowadays) and the necessity to put it on diet to achieve a kind of “Essential UML”. I like the idea of essential UML. It makes worthy to read it.

On the other hand, I want to stress the quote of Ivar Jacobson:

“For 80% of all software only 20% of UML is needed.”

I agree. My own quick usage stats of UML models when creating business software could be the following ones (please share your experience):

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NClass is a elegant UML class diagram tool oriented to code modeling for the C# & Java languages.

• It is specially well suited to create your O-O design class model (and think and visualize the full set in terms of Design Patterns) and generate a skeleton for you in C# or Java.
• On the other hand, if you need to document a-posteriori (I hope you don’t do it frequently, by the way), NClass also incorporates a plug-in developed by Malte Ried to reverse engineering a .NET assembly using reflection to extract the classes and draw the corresponding design class model.

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