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Jeremy D. Miller -- The Shade Tree Developer

Under the hood and working with .Net, TDD, Software Design, and Agile Stuff

Breaking my Visio/Rose-less streak today

I had to break down and install Visio this afternoon to create some UML sequence diagrams to send to an overseas development partner tomorrow.  That breaks a 3+ year streak without drawing a single UML diagram in any kind of modeling tool.  I'm planning to promptly begin  a new streak next week.

I can't say that I have the slightest yearning to pick up Rational Rose or Visio again.  Put me in front of a modeling tool and I go into some sort of zombie mode - "must make class diagram line up better."  I'm still waiting for a modeling tool with the "Minority Report" interface.  Architecture and design isn't real unless somebody is waving their arms about.  Squinting at a Visio screen and fiddling with the mouse just doesn't give me the same architect astronaut high I can get from waving markers in front of a whiteboard in a room with poor ventilation.

 



Comments

Nick Parker said:

At least it wasn't diagramming within Oracle, their tools are horrible in my opinion for that.  I too share your "must make diagram line up" complex.  :-)
# June 21, 2006 3:15 PM

Jeremy D. Miller said:

Oracle *has* a diagramming tool?  
# June 21, 2006 3:28 PM

Jeremy D. Miller said:

Strike that.  Digital camera shot of the whiteboard and my very best handwriting.
# June 21, 2006 5:35 PM

Douglas Rohm said:

Jeremy,
I'm sure you might have tried this already, but have you taken a look at Enterprise Architect by Sparx Systems?  I realize it's not the 'Minority Report' type interface you're looking for, but it sure beats Visio.

http://www.sparxsystems.com/

Great site btw, I read it daily.

Doug
# June 21, 2006 8:43 PM

David Kemp said:

I too share the "line things up" complex, and also the "why can't I make it appear like that" complex. I prefer paper + pen/pencil any day.
If you're going to take a photo of a whiteboard, look at http://www.scanr.com/ - they'll make it all align for you - albeit emblazened with their logo.
# June 22, 2006 4:10 AM

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About Jeremy D. Miller

Jeremy began his IT career writing "Shadow IT" applications to automate his engineering documentation, then wandered into software development because it looked like more fun. Jeremy previously worked as a systems architect building mission critical supply chain software for a Fortune 100 company and learned agile development practices as a .Net consultant at ThoughtWorks, one of the pioneers of agile development. Jeremy is the author of the open source StructureMap (http://structuremap.sourceforge.net) tool for Dependency Injection with .Net and the forthcoming StoryTeller (http://storyteller.tigris.org) tool for supercharged FIT testing in .Net. Jeremy's thoughts on just about everything software related can be found on his weblog "The Shade Tree Developer" at http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller, part of the popular CodeBetter site. Jeremy is a Microsoft MVP for C#. Check out Devlicio.us!

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