> ----------
> From: Aker, Eric[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: 01 February 2001 18:28
> To: 'Angay, Huseyin (Huseyin)** CTR **'; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject: RE: (ROSE) UML Diagrams
>
>
>
> Yes it does cost a lot to maintain.
> BUT
>
> If the project does not get cancelled and you have a version 2, 3, 4 ...
> then the design and the diagrams pay for themselfs many times over.
>
Do I gather that you advise we draw all the diagrams that the toolset allows
us to use? Wouldn't you exercise some judgement over which ones are really
used and which ones are drawn and left to rot -- or, worse, maintained but
not used?
I suspect that's not what you meant.
> How do you train the new people that come on the project in version 3
> to do some update to the design/code? If you include some comments
> in the design of why you did certain things you help them a lot.
>
> What about your test and documentation teams? Those diagrams will
> keep them happy. The cost of good design documents are worth thier
> the effort.
>
Who said, "Draw no diagrams" or "Don't model"?
I recommend that you know why you are modelling and you don't bother if you
don't know the reason and cannot be bothered to find out.
> And the big payoff. You can show your boss that you have done a lot
> of work and could you get a raise please.
>
I hope you were being sarcastic! This last may be funny, but it is, like all
jokes, only too true. And it's one of the main reasons for my objection to
indiscriminate diagramming. The "Never mind the usefulness. Feel the
weight!" approach to documentation leaves me cold. But it does impress some
managers and either encourages or forces (depending on your point of view)
developers to waste (or invest, depending on your point of view) time
producing large documents and pictures (I daren't say models!).
If you think this is anti-modelling, please read what I said in the earlier
message again. I want people to model. But wish everyone knew why they were
modelling and what the artefacts would be used for, instead of just drawig
pictures because some book, guru or company standard dictated it.
I was at school when it was still considered that good handwriting was the
sign of a great man (these were the days when you were not expected to
become a great woman -- a good housewife was much more acceptable, and
housewives had to have neat handwriting, too!).
In my first year in primary, we spent hours drawing circles and slanted
lines and parallel lines and so on. We hated it. No one, however, bothered
to tell us why we were doing it. It turned out that they were pretty useful
exercises to get you into writing before you knew how to write the actual
letters. Great! The investment paid off. But it also turned a few of us off
writing, because we'd never been told that it was not some form of elaborate
torture to break you into the adult world -- as it turned out, the real
tortures arrived later and they were much more elaborate, but I digress.
But that was not enough, was it? As soon as we had learned how to write, we
ended up doing calligraphy. We had exercise books with neat lines that
looked like music sheets (and don't even start me on learning how to write
music!). We now spent hours dipping the quill pen in an ink pot and trying
to write in these books without dripping ink all over the page or dwelling
too long over one letter and ending up making a wet blue hole through
several pages. That was a waste of time of the highest degree. Unlike our
elders of the time, you really have to know when to stop with a good thing
-- like when to stop a good anecdote, so I'll carry on. The only fond memory
I have of those lessons is turning the ink pot upside down and watching the
ink ~not~ dripping out...
... most of time, anyway. I did get a smack on more than one occasion when
the top fell off the cheap plastic inkpot.
Regards,
Huseyin
> Eric
>
>
> --- cut ----
>
> Of course, each one of these costs to produce. But (and most teams forget
> this) they cost even more to maintain. If you are not doing throwaway
> modelling (which should remain the province of back-of-the-envelope
> designs
> as there is no point in prettifying ephemeral pictures), maintenance of
> the
> artefacts is the killer. So, you really must prove to yourself that the
> artefact's benefit will outweigh the cost of both creating and maintaining
> it.
> I've been with many a team that spent valuable time maintaining pictures
> and
> documents that were seen only when they were updated (i.e. dead-end
> artefacts that did not lead to something else). Once they had created the
> documents, they could not admit (without losing face) that they did not
> really need these things; so, they were condemned to maintain them
> forever.
> ... well, actually, until the project ran out of money and canned.
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Huseyin Angay
> Karabash Ltd.
> www.karabash.co.uk
>
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