I've recently started studying the Unified Modeling Language.

I'm currently using an exam book as a study guide, because it presents features without holding back on information-representation at all. Afterward, I will study the book made by the first 3 who started developing UML (since OOPSLA/OOSE I believe, though I could be off by a few years >_<).

But, as I started learning the features in the UML, I realized that UML itself is a language O_O

Some of you may laugh at this, but I didn't at first think of UML as its own language. I thought that UML was a model with specific features for describing things, though this example is probably still not a convincing defense.

I realized that it has such a defined set a features for organizing information (not just data, but practical things too) that it is probably the most portable concept across different languages and design-ideas.

This makes me curious, though. If this language is so versatile and variable, why is there no forum dedicated to design-ideas and refinement of UML? Is the UML too easy to be placed in a forum (because, to me it "looks" easy, but understanding the fundamentals of UML and improving organization skills and data-representation isn't quite as easy)? Is it too broad?

-Alex

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This makes me curious, though. If this language is so versatile and variable, why is there no forum dedicated to design-ideas and refinement of UML?

Not enough posts/week. If there was a forum for each specific language, people would get lost in the overwhelming amount.

UML questions are typically asked in the Computer Science and Software Development forum

UML is stupid and should be avoided. And definitely shouldn't be studied and studied and studied and studied and studied...

UML is stupid and should be avoided. And definitely shouldn't be studied and studied and studied and studied and studied...

Such a cold hear you have there X_X

UML is a wonderful language. I'm starting to get the hang of it! It's just hard as hell to study from an exam book with little prior knowledge @_@

Well, most of the times people come to forums to look for solutions to their programming problems, to find help to solve bugs, etc.

UML is used during the requirement analysis and software design stage, where no coding is done yet and the problem/solution domain is still very abstract. Thus, most programming forums do not have UML / software design section, or have a section but not much traffic.

UML is stupid and should be avoided. And definitely shouldn't be studied and studied and studied and studied and studied...

mmmm nice opinion full of arguments.........

UML kind of lost its way in my opinion. If you are interested in more detailed reasoning you can read it here: 13 reasons for UML’s descent into darkness

I think it has found its way back :D

I was lucky that my university department forced us to program using a system modeling approach through UML. It has only benefited me into understanding deeper the OOP functionality of C++ and write better code.

For this they asked us to use Rhapsody from Telelogic, but there is a problem: a license is very expensive and I only have only through university. If your financial status allows u , I would advice u to use it.
The best thing in programming through UML modeling is that by showing the different UML diagrams everybody can understand how a code works->so its the best solution I think for defining software requirements together with a customer or somebody from the finance/management section that dont know a lot about programming.

UML is used during the requirement analysis and software design stage, where no coding is done yet and the problem/solution domain is still very abstract.

With rhapsody (at least, dont know for other software) u can combine both requirements analysis and coding in the same step while continuously testing, making thus programming faster.

Again this a personal opinion.. :D

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