UML Course Recommendation

[Jason]

Remember the UML is a language

The UML is just a visual language.

A lot of courses just cover the syntax and semantics of that language. Unfortunatly being able to read and even draw a sequence diagram does not tell you "HOW" to actually use it.

I would actually recommend the Open University post grad course on OOAD. It introduces the UML incrementally via an introduction of a process of how to actually apply it to real world situations.

Failing that obtain the following books and spend a lot of time applying what you read

Writing Effective Use Cases
UML Distilled
Applying UML and patterns

The comment earlier on Agile is like comparing apples and bricks. Agile is a philosophy on how to deliver a project, and is mostly about people, communication and testing. There is no reason why you cannot use UML and Agile together

[cojak]

Ta for that Jason, though the for those BA's out there the OOAD course is a bit OTT for those tackling UML from a Business Analysis perspective.

I'd suggest UML for the IT Business Analyst: A Practical Guide to Object-Oriented Requirements Gathering

PS - I've just downloaded the Jude Professional edition, an excellent recommendation, Sir!

[Maca]

Interesting thoughts and comments.

No matter what it is, the key to learning something is feedback. If you make a mistake then you want to find out ASAP. The problem with learning UML is that 'it's just a set of drawings'. So how do you know when you've got it wrong? At least when you try and teach yourself a new computer language you get to compile it and run it. You get feedback. You can still produce some unmaintainable code but at least you know you're learning. This is the first step to learning something that's useful in our industry. The next steps involve getting experience. You get that by doing, asking experienced people and reviewing what others are doing.

So why is UML growing in popularity? It appears to be a rather vague thing. Vague things aren't usually useful. Agile (extreme programming/test-driven development) promotes the idea that vague documentation is pointless and that the code is everything and the test must be specified before the code is written.

So what's the point in UML when ultimately our C++/Java etc is everything? UML diagrams are vague and, more often that not, do not match the reality of the code.

So that's it then, no real point in learning UML, we're stuck at the coding level for ever. For a while some people were reluctant to move from assembler to C and then the same thing again when moving up the abstraction tree to OO languages such as C++/Java. So why are we at the C++/Java level now? Easy answer, we trust the compilers sufficiently to largely trust and forget about the detail of the generated assembler.

What if a tool existed that could take our UML model and generate the C++/Java and therefore the compiled executable. We need to be able to trust the tool to do what we expect. We need the tool to be capable of allowing us to control the generated code such that we're not forced to hand-code. We need the tool to generate code that we'd be proud to say we'd written.

Now if we had a tool like that, then it would be worth learning UML to use it and by using it, the tool would in turn teach us through feedback.