Diomidis Spinellis has just published the very interesting column UML Everywhere where he defends that all software engineers should adopt the same graphics standard notation FOR drawing ALL our diagrams AND, MORE specifically, he proposed TO use UML AS such standard notation.
The benefits OF USING a standard notation seem clear (better communication, ability to draw richer diagrams since we are confident that the reader will be able to understand them and so on). Using UML as the standard notation is just a pragmatic decision. Despite all its shortcomings, it is by far the most widely used modeling notation.
I know many of you won’t agree with this so let´s get the discussion started!
FNR Pearl Chair. Head of the Software Engineering RDI Unit at LIST. Affiliate Professor at University of Luxembourg. More about me.
Indeed, I don’t agree at all.
Just try to model a complex web portal (with the needed level of detail) in UML. It’s painful AND useless (AND that’s why web developers still disregard modeling). I’m wondering who IS USING Conallen’s approach for that (and I don’t mean who purchased the book, I mean who really applied it TO industrial cases).
I think Diomedis is thinking more on the benefits of UML when used in the UMLAsSketch mode.
Ok. then my position softens: UML is definitely the “lingua franca” of software engineers.