Modelling Program Structure with UML

I want to make a cartography of our ERP system
(at least some core functionalitiee) that we did develop in house.

Do you reckon UML is a good tool to document data flow structures & business rules

I have no UML exp so far.

Any good URLs & book references are welcomed :-)

Cheers

Pelle Jakobsen
Tuesday, June 22, 2004

used wisely, UML is a good way of documenting your systems.

A good start is the UML Weekend Crash Course book from Wiley

After that, you might want to check out UML Distilled from Addison Wesley.

I would probably stay away from some monstrosity like Rational. Take a look at Enterprise Architect from Sparx
http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/

Tapiwa
Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Oy, if you have no UML experience, you have a large mountain to climb.

Good tool:  UMLStudio.  $500 for a single user commercial license.  It does UML, and will generate a C++ or Java template for you.  It can also read C++ and Java, and build the start of a UML diagram for you.  www.pragsoft.com

Good book:  Agile Modeling, by Scott Ambler.

One of the defects of UML is that it is the merging of three different guy's ideas and preferences -- Booch, Rumbaugh, and Jacobsen.  As such, it has a lot of redundancy and different ways to say the same thing.

Mr. Ambler's book tries to use a few pieces of the UML stew to provide a good quality result in a reasonable time.

AllanL5
Tuesday, June 22, 2004

My advice.

Write a document in plain english explaining the functionalities of your ERP system and use UML (or whatever sketches you are confortable with) *WHEN NECESSARY* to add relevant information of the main workflows, data structures, business rules, etc..

This is better IMHO than a bunch of UML documents.

Daniel Tio
Tuesday, June 22, 2004

  Recent Topics

  Fog Creek Home