I’m just wondering, do php/yii developers use UML in their projects? I belive, even pretty simple web site/applications require design and data modelling stages before you start actual writing code. In real life, I’ve seen quite a few web project with proper development process and documentation, but they are mostly corporate level and have nothing with php. Many companies outsource php projects and this is the worst case scenario if you have to support such projects. I start thinking about improving development process itself…I stumbled upon PHP Development with Yii and it sounds to me like music. Inevitably you come to something like this.
I use yEd and MySql workbench to create all diagrams I need. Since I try to write most of my applications following TDD methodology I don’t create detailed class diagrams. yEd is simple and great for use cases diagrams, authorization (roles, tasks, operations) diagrams and others which can give me a bird eye view on particular tasks. There is nothing that can beat a good old todo list
Thanks for yEd, looks really good. I’ve used the similar java based free software Dia (live.gnome.org/Dia/), but it’s more complicated and multi-purpose. Thumbs up for yEd, I’ll definitely try it. I bet, any sort of diagram is a way better than pick-up logic from source code, even if it’s really nice looking and well commented code.
As you know the great advantage using an UML modeler is to be able to specify in one place the goal of the application (use cases), its implementation, its deployment, and to generate the documentations, allowing a consistence difficult to reach using separated tools and supports.
By definition the more a language is pure object the more it can be well managed by a UML modeler, this implies Php and Python for instance aren’t perfect targets language. In comparison even C++ source codes can also contain C code out of the scope of UML, in C++ the attributes and operation parameters are typed and the multiplicity has sense enforcing its management by a UML modeler.
So it is not surprising if UML is less used in Php community compared to Java or C++ for instance, but yes UML is used for Php and this why people asked me to add its management in Bouml in 2007.
Best regards
P.S. I am the author of Bouml, I am not myself a Php developper
I saw your application BOUML and I’m quiet disappointed that you stopped its development, but anyway you did a great job! I’ll definitely try php code generation and especially I’m interested in reverse generation from php code. However, my main goal isn’t code generation, I just want to improve my development process and documentation. Sometimes UML is over-killing for very basic php project, but for everyone who is into software development in general UML is a must have skill.
I’ve been using BOUML for some time now (2+ years) in my C++/Qt projects. Its diagram from code generation is really helpful when creating documentations. Bruno, you created a really good and usefull application, which is a good alternative to some commercial software I tried. I was really sad to read all these accusations pointed at you from wikipedia members and administrators. I hope, at some time you will decide to continue developing one of the best, if not the best free UML editor.
Nevertheless I think it’s a bit of overkill to use BOUML for simple diagrams at planning stage which are very likely to change during development (following TDD/BDD that happens a lot ).
I’m on mac so there is not thousands of choices in the open source, I’m using argoUML which is a really great tool (for me, it seems that some people need something a little more developped)!
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