1.4. "Degrees" of UMLUML can be used as much or as little as you like. Martin Fowler describes three common ways that people tend to use UML:
The approach used depends on the type of application you're building, how rigorously the design will be reviewed, whether you are developing a software system, and, if it is software, the software development process you're using. In certain industries, such as medical and defense, software projects tend to lean toward UML as a blueprint because a high level of quality is demanded. Software design is heavily reviewed since it could be mission-critical: you don't want your heart monitoring machine to suddenly display the "blue screen of death." Some projects can get away with less modeling. In fact, some commercial industries find that too much modeling is cumbersome and slows down productivity. For such projects, it makes sense to use UML as a sketch and have your model contain some architectural diagrams and a few class and sequence diagrams to illustrate key points. |