MJ Ray wrote:
David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com writes:
This is cos you probalby have no formal training in systems analysis. once you try and use them they will become second nature, have a look at the book "UML in a nutshell" it explains it all, I was like you I ignored it all untill I understood how it would all work, I now will try and use UML for my software to improve it.
Well, I'll take a look, but the majority of systems analysis methods appeared to be focused on the object-orientated imperative paradigm, which isn't where I usually (want to) live.
that is true in some respects, UML, booch and the like are biased towards OO, but there are plenty of other schemes which can explain complex systems that don't use OO. In Electronic Engineering (yep, I call myself an EE as well as SE), there are methods that using state transition diagrams and flowcharts. While you can make a very bad flowchart, as well as a very good one, the point is that at least you have stood back and have a formal(ish) document which others can refer to. Whern you have large numbers of people working on something, you need to make sure that the design is set in stone, and cannot be open to interpretation. This is why a textual description is not good enough imho, as there is no formal use of english to describe something, therefore it is open to interpretation and errors are made....
BUT, (bear this in mind) it is impossible to design a system that is exactly righ the first time round, there is an iterativation stage of modifications and design changes (the waterfall model for those in the know)... this does not necessarly mean that the system was badly designed in teh first place, it's just that until you actually start building the system you won't be able to see the technical dificulties...
my opinion, get a basic design that is fairly generic, build it, then find out what is wrong (hopefully if the first design is well thought out there will be nothing serious!) and iterate the design to incorporate these changes.....
just my 5p.. Sz