Using Vague Terminology

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To keep the peace, some modelers give their classes vague names. One modeler, for example, had a diagram with the Tuple class on it—and the developers were confused about its meaning. When we asked the modeler about it, we found out the modeler was avoiding a political fight. You see, the developers had strong opinions about the meaning of specific data items. Instead of clearly defining Tuple to be a grouping of either abstract or concrete data items and named functions, used as metadata in the process of extracting data from a source data set, the modeler choose to stay out of trouble by using vague class names. No one could accuse the modeler of choosing sides in the “data item” battle, and the modeling work could still go forward.

Now the whole point of using UML notation is to foster communication. Often users and developers are not precise about what they mean. For example, you may find that the same term, Tuple—as applied to abstract-versus- concrete data elements—has different meanings to different people. Work with each person to find out precisely what he or she is talking about. Then use UML to communicate the different meanings accurately to each group. You become the hero because you help overcome conflict among developers by clarifying what they mean when they use similar terminology.

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