I am a senior in Computer Science, and right now I am in a class called Software Project where we have been learning some basic UML and software design concepts while working on a project for our university. Our instructor has no experience in this field (he''s a business prof. with experience with relational databases), but he got Rational to donate a bunch of software and he has had some training in the use of Rational''s products. So far, we have made a Vision document, a Requirements document, and drawn some Use Case Diagrams, all of which took most of the semester for our instructor to teach (he tried to split up the Rational Suite Enterprise among our classmates so we would each learn an app and try to integrate that knowledge to help our project along). The problem we faced is the project we are working on is so small that if we had just sat around and coded it it would have taken a few weeks at most. The Requirements and Vision document helped a lot in giving us ideas of how to implement the design, but doing diagrams for the project proved to be a waste of time (eventually my classmates convinced him to just let us code the project, but we ran out of time in the semester and those of us coding have to work on other class work so we can graduate). Sorry for the lengthy intro (I was a Math/English double major before I transferred into COSC). So anyway the question I have is this: Has anyone had good experience with UML (possibly with Rational tools and RUP)? And is this method a good way to run a software project? I can see how it could be good on a larger project, but our project that the instructor picked was small enough that 3 people could have completed it from start to finish in half of a semester. I just want to know I haven''t wasted 4 credits (even though I had to have them to graduate) learning this stuff.

During the software project class, I learned a lot about the software design process (though most was learned from mistakes made). I would just like to learn some successful or unsuccessful projects and how they turned out or what caused them to fail. I think our problem was the inexperience of the class and the instructor. Thanks!

I use rose on a semi-daily basis for my indie project. For any large scale project I definately recommend it. It keeps you well organized, and I definately get better results using UML than without it.

If you don''t hate UML (As many people do right off the bat) then you are a step ahead of the game. Try using it on any of your personal projects (that are of moderate size). Once you get used to it, it will improve your software design abilities.

Plus, you get a big fat salary hike when you say I''m a software architect, rather than a programmer.

Yah I actually enjoyed RUP and UML, and I think I understand it well enough to use it in a project. I am comfortable with Rational Rose. I am glad to hear you find UML and RUP useful.

Also the spirit of UML is something like "if you dont need this diagram then don''t do it". RUP also has a more flexible development style than say the waterfall modell. In rup you can fix and add code if you like (sort of, there are som byrocratic issues ) but for medium to large projects RUP and UML is very good

--spencer

If RUP or ROPES, and UML don''t do it for you, take a look at this
XP

Magmai Kai Holmlor

"Oh, like you''ve never written buggy code" - Lee

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Shamelessly ripped from Oluseyi

Yah. Our class convinced our instructor to drop the RUP and UML so we could just code, and from there it was very much like XP. Thanks to everyone who responded to this. It gave me some good thoughts and perspective on RUP and UML.

Thank''s for the input Bill. Those are the conclusions I reached through completing the class (we presented our final and incomplete project to our stakeholders today). We used UML and made Use Case Diagrams of our project, which helped alot in the implementation in code, but if we would have sat down and done Sequence diagrams, class diagrams, and so on, we would never have gotten what we did done. The stakeholders weren''t surprised that we didn''t finish because most Software Project classes here don''t either, but it wasn''t the point of the class. Thanks for the input on RUP and UML!