UML

UML became popular because it settled the methodology wars.

But these days, no one learns UML anymore and those who care spend their time learning one of the plethora of NoUML methods out there.

Do you use UML? Do you use a NoUML method? Why?
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The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose modeling language not a methodology.

Do you use UML?
Sort of, I'm a bit loose with my interpretation and keep the number of diagrams types to a minimum.

Do you use a NoUML method?
I used to do the Rational Unified Process (RUP) with Rational Rose. I found this to have to much ceremony for what I was doing, so it too got a bit loose.

I started looking at the ICONIX Process, I liked it but din't really stick with it because I couldn't get the ISO9001 guy to relax to paper work for me to be able to do what I wanted. The processes here are from a very mechanical engineering mindset. I'll probably revisit ICONIX with added TDD soon.
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I don't use UML (explicitly) because I don't really see the need for it. It's usually just as easy to read in code or generated by something like Doxygen.
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UML isn't really for knowing how individual blocks of code works. It's much better suited for seeing how all the blocks of code work together. So Doxygen is not a replacement for UML. At least from my experience.
I've gotten way further as a programmer than I should have been able to without extensive prototyping. UML being a tool I should learn to use for prototyping.


Do you use UML?

I use it occasionally to communicate design, e.g. drawing on a whiteboard during a design meeting, or when preparing product proposals.

Why?

Because the intended audience knows what it means.
Doxygen can be configured to tell you which functions a function is calling, not much for actual logic though.

I make model interaction diagrams, but not much else. The functionality of my code is displayed when I run the test suite.
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When the user messes up
  there is an error message
  nothing bad happened to the database

When the user is just fine
  there are emails sent out
    the emails contain the correct info
  the database is updated
  there is a success message


The actual flow of the program doesn't matter as much as refactoring and adding features in such a way that the tests continue to pass.
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I went to a tech conference recently and there were presentations on modelling.

But the stated reason for them was that no one new UML, Universities don't teach UML and most developers aren't interested in UML. So people are going off and creating their own ways of doing things, leading to this: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=software+models&newwindow=1&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=mcbYU5mNBaa60QXIt4GoCg&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1414&bih=823

I just think it would be easier to stay with one method, which isn't owned by anyone, then we wouldn't have this mess.
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closed account (z05DSL3A)
Modeling language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modeling_language

Software development methodology (method)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development_methodology

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One method is insufficient for all development in the same way as one programming language is insufficient.
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