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Comment by tsally | Hacker News Reader

Well written code is approchable without constructs like UML. The problem with most 'programmers' is that they don't think they should be doing hard programming each day, every day. Yes, experienced hackers make it look easy, but it took them a lot of work to get there.

Also, just because hackers are a scare resource doesn't mean we should accept a lower quality in the end product. What if we did that with the engineers that worked on airplanes? Software is used in many similarly critical situations. It's time to accept that the things that adults use like UML and overly complex IDEs don't increase the number of good programmers. Ironically, they actually mask the true ability of a programmer. To actually accomplish that, you need to start with the programming curriculum in high school and early college education.

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<rant>

Well written code is approchable without constructs like UML.

ANY code is approachable without constructs like UML. Compare the Addison Wesley "Professional Programming" series (the ones that published APUE, UNP, Pthreads books, etc; the white text with a splash of blue) to the yellow/khaki "Object Series", the ones that published Booch's books and the french dude who was pushing Eiffel, etc.) The difference between the two series of books is essentially UML and "object technology". The first is readable bliss, the later is an abomination cast at us from the bowels of hell.

UML is wankery. It's what liars and crooks push when they lack the sufficient bullshit to make it to high executive positions, and the talent, dedication and honesty necessary to be an engineer. Everytime I met a "software architect" that used that garbage, the person was always nearly clueless and a pain to be with.

</rant>

And should we be amazed at your drawing scribbles, boxes, triangles and whatnot? How should I interpret your abstract and masterful artsy drawing?

There's a time and place for UML. Overdoing is wrong, I agree. But that doesn't mean UML is bad. When a project is huge enough, sometime you do need few pictures to help others to understand the big picture. Some people can understand better via visualization.

I'm not sure if others feel this way, but I'd actually rather see someone's free form artsy drawing than a UML picture. I think it's reasonable to expect that a skilled developer should be able to provide an intuitive whiteboard diagram or slide-show graphic. It takes some practice, sure, but I think UML is the wrong solution. UML is constantly misused. Big enterprises love CASE tools like Rational Rose, which push UML way beyond its intended usefulness.

I'd actually rather see someone's free form artsy drawing than a UML picture

I totally agree. The whole idea behind UML is to force diagrams into a set of constraints drawn from a particular model of computing and design (early 90s OO, I suppose) on the assumption that this is the "right" way to imagine software. This excludes the ineffable creativity which drawings are so good for. It's amazing what happens in a good design discussion when people spontaneously pick up a pen at a whiteboard without thinking about it. UML forces people to think about something other than the problem at hand, distorting ideas and breaking flow.

And in the name of what? "We need a standard," they used to say, "so that people know whether they should draw square boxes or round ones, so we can get beyond the notation wars." What tripe.

Quite right. There's nothing wrong with a dash of UML as seasoning or a visual of some actually critical process, but just like you wouldn't want to eat a half pound of oregano on top of your steak, you don't want to produce as much UML as code.

I have included emitted UML (from running code) into my end documentation (from c#/VS world). But for any work I've ever done, there is a unordered heap of back of envelope artifacts that I fear only make sense to me.

It is hard to capture certain details in prose, and a (nearly zero effort) emitted UML diagram can do the trick. Or at least convincingly make it look like you did the trick...

But start from UML? I think I'd rather spend that time polishing my cv.

"Yes, experienced hackers make it look easy, but it took them a lot of work to get there."

My manager just asked why it took 2 weeks just to promote 1000 lines of code into production.

Today's 1000 lines of code was 5000 lines of code a week ago. I suppose that if I had promoted 5000 lines of code a week ago, I would have looked better. But we know better...

I hear that. At my current job (large defense contractor-- team of 50+ programmers), programmer productivity is measured by lines of code committed per day. There was a day where I actually removed 100 lines of code and rewrote it in 50. The result was a much more efficient algorithm, but according to the metrics used to evaluate performance, I did negetive work. At least I'm only expected to average +12 lines of code committed per day. :-)

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