Creating software in a nutshell
It’s been a bit too long since I did a post so I thought I’d post some thoughts about the creation of software and cooperation in a small group with tools we’re using like UML, design patterns etc. I’m assuming that a sufficiently thorough analysis has been made and that the group comprises about two to four developers. This would be the optimal course of action for my personal taste and knowledge level at this time.
Beginning
Creating a design in face to face sessions dividing the software into components and then modeling the parts in UML with an occasional informal sketch not necessarily UML to get thoughts conveyed. Whatever floats your boat in this regard. It’s highly preferable if all devs can retreat for a while (preferably more than a day), pondering. Pondering includes exercising, writing some documentation etc. Then the group meets again and continue to flesh out the details.
Middle
Individual preferences and consensus are used to divide the work in between developers. Design patterns are used for discussion thoughts about converting the design into code. They are also used at leisure in the implementations. Unit tests are being introduced.
End
Implementation details are sorted out. Unit tests are being finished and adjusted as stuff changes. Documentation ensues and finally for future reference, like when you get new additions to the group and want to explain the design to them you can generate or change the UML diagram to reflect changes and additions the group makes during the development process.
It’s probably a rare case when everything is this straight forward and simple, but I think this would be specific enough to contribute to a discussion and not too heavy but still substantial enough to help. One caveat is that there’s a bunch of assumptions about the devs in the group, that they do possess enough knowledge to be able to do OOA/D, test driven and UML.