UML: A thousand words no less.

Over the years I have been trying to incorporate more formal method and notation into what I do. I am a lazy, procrastinating son of a bitch, so this has not always been a success. My goal is to produce my own repeatable "method" for software development, incorporating my favourite bits from books and techniques I have met along the way.

I am quite keen on some of the diagrams in UML, some of them are of little use in a Notes environment but I often use Use Case and State Diagrams. On Monday I will be involved in the workshops for a new workflow system. To get the requirements down and tease out any inconsistencies I plan to guide the users through constructing a State Diagram so we can, in real time, capture the workflow, roles and reader/authors.

Up till now I have had to rely on scribbling this stuff down or using Visio but today I discovered Gentleware's Poseidon software. It is Java based, so loads a bit slowly, but after that it's great. No honest, it really is rather good. Whip up a class diagram and generate the Java classes, groovy. What's more the community edition is free. Have a look.

THE JOY OF FOLDING

Out doing a bit of business up town. As usual I went on m'folding bike, Lucille. Riding a folding bicycle is easy once you have overcome the panicky feeling that you have borrowed your sister's bike and everyone is looking at you.

Here is a quick travelogue taken on my Sony Mobile and bluetoothed on to PC and blog:

From left to right:

1. Arrive at Paddington followed by gentle cycle thru hyde park.


2. Wwwwoo scary cycle thru Hyde Park Corner chased by National Express Coach from Wolverhampton.


3. Buckingham Palace, Queen not in as usual, must be out getting cigarettes.


4. Down the Mall to Admiralty arch.


5. Across Trafalger square.


6. Piccadilly Circus.


7. Quick cup of coffee with m'cycling fixed-geared-uber-chum, Spiney Norman


8. Lucille going into Green Park Tube.


9. Lucille waiting for the tube at Green Park. Back to Cheese International for more computer fun.

Fold to live, live to fold.

J2EE: Java Server Faces

Java Server Faces Technology claims to enable us to take a visual approach to developing J2EE apps, it all sounds rather interesting. Here is a thread of articles about them in Websphere - from developer works. When I was typing this entry I made the typo: Java Server Faeces; is this a worry?

SHY GUY SEEKS FUN AND FROLICS

Shy Monkey-Programmer-Boy, 30 Something, Portal-Curious, WLTM experienced J2EE couples or singles, can accomodate. No Timewasters or Lotusscript.