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Always be sure not to over write the phone number of cute girl two tables down.
Nah, that one's not important. Chances are it's a fake number anyway... 
An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
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Wahht!! Noooooooo!!!
Not the dreaded fake number blow off. Damn! 
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire!
Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)!
SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0
0 rows returned
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Or the updated-for-the-modern-era email blow-off!
http://www.papernapkin.net[^]
The kindest thing you can do for a stupid person, and for the gene pool, is to let him expire of his own dumb choices.
[Roger Wright on stupid people]
We're like private member functions
[John Theal on R&D]
We're figuring out the parent thing as we go though. Kinda like setting up Linux for the first time ya' know...
[Nitron]
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Reminds me of a book (The Beermat Entrepreneur) I've read got on my bookshelf.
Cheers,
Simon
sig ::
"Don't try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie.... Study computers instead.", Jackie Chan on career choices.
article :: animation mechanics in SVG blog:: brokenkeyboards
"It'll be a cold day in Hell when I do VB.NET...", Chris Maunder
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Every developer should have access to a whiteboard or chalkboard. It is one of the best design tools out there.
I've found for many projects, nothing works better than a bunch of class diagrams/models written up on the whiteboard. And redesigning is easy as long as you have an eraser.
An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
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MadHatter ¢ wrote:
can I get an AMEN to that brother!
AMEN!
Sooner or later ... Boom!
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BTW - Panaboards are SWEET!
For those who don't know, a Panaboard is a large format whiteboard that photocopies to 8.5 x 11.
I would recommend one to any organization with more than a dozen developers - the payback should be pretty quick.
Dale Thompson
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Second only to the wheel
Phil Harding
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I got myself a whiteboard a few months ago. Now I'm thinking about getting a whitewall...
Multiply it by infinity and take it beyond eternity and you'll still have no idea about what I'm talking about.
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i used to have a whiteboard, and 6 different coloured pens *happy memories*
when they moved us from the downstairs to the upstairs office we suddenly gained windows in the walls 
however, the only white boards are behind peoples desks, so i cannot really get to them. and since i am now in the middle of the room, i don't even have somewhere for a small white board 
pencil and paper is a poor substitute, but at least it is something.
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A whiteboard is invaluable! Of course, in my day it was a chalkboard, but the principle is the same. Modern collaboration tools are crap for modelling and design, and do nothing to help the brainstorming process in a group design mode. When lacking for a good workspace, though, it's hard to beat a stack of cocktail napkins shared by 2 to 6 design engineers and programmers. The design happens spontaneously - the formal documentation and specification can be done back at the office where no real work is possible.
"My kid was Inmate of the Month at Adobe Mountain Juvenile Corrections Center" - Bumper Sticker in Bullhead City
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A very large white board i mind you. Because else the you run out of space .
Hmmm.... no make it white board walls (at least 2) so all your ideas can be drawn.
if you know nothing it means you know as much as all the wise man together, accept your there earlier.
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The way I model the program before I start to code highly depends on the size of the project.
When I write a small tool for exemple, I only make a sketch on a A4 size paper and start coding a.s.a.p.
If I start a big project, I always try to define all the classes and their relations to eachother before I start coding.
Multiply it by infinity and take it beyond eternity and you'll still have no idea about what I'm talking about.
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The question implies that you do planning at all. Not everybody does.
(No, not me. I voted for UML, at least we're using Use Cases)
Regards
Thomas
Disclaimer:
Because of heavy processing requirements, we are currently using some of your unused brain capacity for backup processing. Please ignore any hallucinations, voices or unusual dreams you may experience. Please avoid concentration-intensive tasks until further notice. Thank you.
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Isn't that what the "I wing it" option is for?
An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
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In the broadest sense, yes. 
Regards
Thomas
Disclaimer:
Because of heavy processing requirements, we are currently using some of your unused brain capacity for backup processing. Please ignore any hallucinations, voices or unusual dreams you may experience. Please avoid concentration-intensive tasks until further notice. Thank you.
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... unless that option was intended for aeronautical engineers and those in the aviation profession...
An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
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I like the freeform capability of a generic drawing tool. I can draw state diagrams, flow charts, db diagrams, architecture, top level diagrams, low level diagrams, etc., without being encumbered by someone's concept of how I should be modeling.
Marc
MyXaml
Advanced Unit Testing
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I like the freeform capability of a generic drawing tool.
On one hand I agree with you, but will also state I find many/most that take this route are so inconsistent that they lose most of the meaning to what they have defined. I also agree that several popular tools are almost imposible to us so you avoid them. Kind of goes along with the results show so far.
For the above issues I find that code generation to be secondary and ease of use the primary feature in UML tools.
I do not mind getting old. It beats all the other options that can think of.
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Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
I find many/most that take this route are so inconsistent that they lose most of the meaning
Very true. Consistency is usually a good thing, especially if there are many chefs in the kitchen, or many diners in the restaurant.
Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
I also agree that several popular tools are almost imposible to us so you avoid them.
That, and their cost, although there are a some good, inexpensive modeling tools out there. I guess I just work with what I'm familiar with in this case, as it's more a tool for me to figure things out rather than convey information to others.
Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
I find that code generation to be secondary
Agreed! Any document becomes a maintenance issue, and it's frustrating that a lot of these tools don't reverse engineer. So, I make changes to the model in the code and they can't recreate the diagrams. Or, if they do, all visual context in the original document is lost, such as placement, fonts, colors, comments, etc.
It's interesting how we embed higher level meaning in diagrams through things that code generation and reverse engineering don't capture, and thus how difficult it is to preserve that meaning.
Marc
MyXaml
Advanced Unit Testing
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Marc Clifton wrote:
it's more a tool for me to figure things out
Very good point. Who is the audience should not be forgotten!
I do not mind getting old. It beats all the other options that can think of.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
Any document becomes a maintenance issue, and it's frustrating that a lot of these tools don't reverse engineer. So, I make changes to the model in the code and they can't recreate the diagrams. Or, if they do, all visual context in the original document is lost, such as placement, fonts, colors, comments, etc.
The complexity of the tools turns their use into a 'meta-programming' task. The design tool then becomes a meta-compiler, whose output you have to debug.
Now, if you were to include full-bore reverse engineering along with a refactoring capability, that might be worthwhile.
Software Zen: delete this;
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it is somewhere between other and wing it. i think about it, perhaps talk with someone, to try and get a second perspective.
beyond that, i tend to sketch out some of my thinking on an A4 pad with a pencil, before just starting coding.
there isn't exactly a "design first" culture where i work 
still, having downloaded both a flow chart and UML modelling program from codeproject, i am hoping to move to a more structured approach in future.
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