[techtalk] XP vs UML

[Michelle Murrain]

On Thursday 29 March 2001 04:39 am, Caitlin wrote:

> I'm firmly in the UML camp, but in the minimalist wing.
>
> What I have seen repeatedly is hard-working market driven teams
> digging themselves into deep holes by "rapidly" turning out code.
>
> They "rapidly" turn out code that deals with the most obvious aspects
> of the problem, but is structuraly at odds with the complete
> requirements.
<snip>

As someone who is relatively new to coding for production purposes (all the 
other coding in my life I've done for research purposes - very different 
constraints), as well as currently being the only programmer in my firm, I'm 
really fascinated by this topic. I've become familiar with UML, actually via 
learning about XML - and I have decided to work on getting it under my belt. 

I haven't learned a lot about XP - just read a bit. 

Since all the programming I do at the current time is for the web, it's all 
pretty small (my most complex script I think now is about 1000 lines - 
although I do things pretty modularly, so that the application for one 
complex web site that I'm working on now probably adds up to 4000 lines of 
code or so.) 

Obviously, in that context, UML is, perhaps arguably, overkill - it's easy to 
rapidly generate code and fix it, and have it not become too chaotic, since 
it's so small. 

But there are some very interesting aspects of XP - like no overtime, user 
stories, and coding standards. But since I'm a soloist at this time, the team 
aspects of XP obviously won't work. 

For those who've done application or OS programming as well as web 
programming, what do you see are the major differences? Major similarities. 
Which do you like best and why? I've been thinking of delving into some 
application programming, but it seems a bit daunting to me.

Michelle
------------
Michelle Murrain, Ph.D.
President
Norwottuck Technology Resources
mpm at norwottuck.com
http://www.norwottuck.com