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Ask HN: Did an UML diagram ever changed the world?

12 points by trbecker ↗ HN
I have my perks against what's considered "good software engineering" (UML diagrams, etc.) I would like to see supporting and/or denying evidence on the topic: was any of these tools used to build a prototype or application that made it big?

3 comments

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jasonparallel
Agile software development principles state that the needs of your project should drive the artifacts developed. Need to explain something complicated to a group of people who will implement it; then create the minimal set of diagrams to help convey the idea. Then talk to them and see what questions they have. If as an architect you want to create a class diagram because you are worried that the developer will not select the ideal class names or create your nifty inheritance hierarchy; then you are most likely wasting your time.

I believe that a majority of UML diagrams are create after the fact, just so engineers can try to convince people that they know what they are doing.

Tycho
I was using pyparsing for the first time yesterday, and I printed off the UML class diagram as it was the most effective 'cheat sheet' available.
ptmcg
I'm glad to see that somebody finds these to be useful.