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Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML??

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  To: Patricia Shanahan
From: "John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid>

In article <i8-dnR2vnZbqqIDNnZ2dnUVZ_qudnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
 Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> wrote:

> On 8/4/2012 1:17 AM, Wanja Gayk wrote:
> > In article <EvSdnXhPjOT-IY_NnZ2dnUVZ_rSdnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
> > pats@acm.org says...
> >
> >> I think of programming languages as tools, not philosophies.
> >
> > You can use a excavator to dig a hole and you could use your old
> > hand shovel, but you would not try to grab and move the excavator's
> > arm with our hands to dig a hole, just because that's the way you
> > operated your old hand shovel for the past 10 years, and you're
> > used to that.
> >
> > Both are different tools that use the same method (digging) to do
> > the same job (creating a hole), but they want to be used the way
> > their inventors have imagined, not the way you have used another
> > tool previously. It may still work though, but I doubt it's the
> > brightest idea.
>
> There are indeed some things that are really necessary for effective
> use of a given tool. I put the sharp end of my chisel against the
> wood, and tap the blunt end with a mallet. I'm sure everyone using a
> wood chisel and a mallet does that the same way round.

One sharp on both ends might be widely rejected as dangerous; one blunt on both 
ends might be an unfamiliar style of draw knife. I see no harm in polite 
explication in either case.

> The analogy for the situation that started this sub-thread is as
> though the excavator were delivered with green paint, and most
> excavators of that model were painted green. A particular user has a
> lot of hole-related tools such as pile drivers and other models of
> excavators, and choose to paint all of them blue to avoid the
> inconvenience of keeping different paint colors around.
>
> He asked a question about lubricating the excavator, but some people
> take one look at a photo of his blue excavator and tell him that it
> should be green, that he will never be a capable excavator user
> unless he paints it green, and that green paint is the excavator way.

A medical supply vendor asks for help marketing a new line of compressed 
nitrous oxide. Instead of the familiar blue, the tanks are green, "nitrous" is 
almost illegible, and "oxide" is misspelled in a particularly unfortunate way. 
No one comments. An errant bottle finds its way to a matching green oxygen 
manifold; hapless victims enter a persistent vegetative state. Misery ensues.

As a practical matter, most stylistic vagaries fall between these consequential 
extremes. I would encourage posters to welcome related answers, both those that 
cite a problem and those that comment on its relative importance.

--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

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Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Arne Vajhøj" <arne.vajhøj@1:261/38.remove-10ae-this> - 2012-07-27 18:40 +0000
  Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Patricia Shanahan" <patricia.shanahan@1:261/38.remove-10ae-this> - 2012-07-27 18:41 +0000
    Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? jebblue <n@n.nnn> - 2012-07-28 11:32 -0500
    Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Wanja Gayk" <wanja.gayk@1:261/38.remove-5qr-this> - 2012-08-04 18:41 +0000
      Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Patricia Shanahan" <patricia.shanahan@1:261/38.remove-5qr-this> - 2012-08-04 18:41 +0000
        Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "John B. Matthews" <john.b..matthews@1:261/38.remove-2y0-this> - 2012-08-05 18:42 +0000
        Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Arne Vajhøj" <arne.vajhøj@1:261/38.remove-p82-this> - 2012-08-08 06:20 +0000
    Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Arne Vajhøj" <arne.vajhøj@1:261/38.remove-p82-this> - 2012-08-08 06:20 +0000
  Re: Do C++ and Java professionals use UML?? "Gene Wirchenko" <gene.wirchenko@1:261/38.remove-10ae-this> - 2012-07-27 18:41 +0000

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