On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:55 AM, R Fritz <[email protected]> wrote: > 1. WtF is UML & do I need to learn more about it?
It's more or less the standard design notation for OO these days. If you're only working on small projects, it's probably not required, but for communicating your design to others or documenting a complex design, it's pretty handy. Even for smaller projects, it can be useful--like anything else, sometimes writing things down helps you to think about the problem. If you want to learn more, Fowler's UML Distilled[0] is a good introduction and reference. > 3. What are good general purpose cross-platform diagramming tools? Don't know about general-purpose, but if you're looking for a UML-specific tool umlet[1] is a good choice--it's lightweight and uses a text-based notation. It feels a lot like wiki editing, as opposed to some of the bigger tools that make you wade through dialog after dialog to do something like adding a method. - Bradey [0] http://www.amazon.com/UML-Distilled-Standard-Addison-Wesley-Technology/dp/0321193687/ [1] http://www.umlet.com/
