UML is screwed

This is a perfect summary of why UML is screwed. In fact, I would add in three more points to the list:

Fat boy by mandj98

• UML has failed to make sense in agile development. Agile developers prefer code over formalism and coding is very much part of the thinking process. Doing a major modeling exercise does fit well into this
• Open source developers don’t use UML. Again, open source developers communicate using code (I read tons of commit logs each day): The very nature of heterogeneous communities means you can’t force tools on them, and since the availability of good, free tools and interoperability between them is severely lacking, UML just doesn’t work beyond simple diagrams. And since open source is more important than ever, this is significant
• The support for advanced refactoring in modern IDEs means we keep changing our code all the time. Keeping a model up-to-date gets impossible very quickly

All in all, UML is screwed.

Like many of the commentators on the post above, I use simple class diagrams and sequence diagrams to communicate. Usually as part of white board sessions. Despite many attempts, I now never use the UML meta model. The formalism in UML doesn’t help or interest me.

On a separate note, number 12 on the list in the original post is “Treat software development like manufacturing”. This might be my favorite fallacy of software development management. But that’s for a different post.