[AccessD] Methods, tools and the d*^$#)( UML

Hiya folks,

Happy new year!  Looks like I am be back from the "hallowed halls" of
method consulting yet again and having to do with the ____real___ world of
development....

Anyway, having spoken out (within the client) for the last x months about
development best practices, UMl and the way, the truth and the light of
rapid, but not extreme, development methods I am now in the enviable
position of having to implement what I said.

One of the problems of speaking from the ivory tower of development
methodology reseacrh is that many, many options are presented and many
ideas are gleaned and ...discussed... (many name also appear, amongst which
the illustrious of this list come up quite frequently! ) .

Its very easy to talk of best practice - and in one's own universe - to
implement it.  However, I have just been granted the privilege (?) of
implementing it across an entire organisation structure. An organisation
with a large and diverse set of IT environments (mainframe to J2EE) and a
large and diverse set of psychologies (individual and team).


<<sidebar>> When I started in this game FTN77 was a good idea, COBOL
transformed the way we had to think about systems and information, IT
centres
consisted of programmers in white coats (or sports coats with elbow
patches) and I/O was all about
card decks or, for the bleeding edge companies, text to input forms ......
Name: |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__| |__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|
Sex: | __| (Y/N)
DOB: |__|__| / |__|__|  / |__|__|
etc...

We seem to have moved on a bit from this paradigm.
<</sidebar>>


Now, given that AccessD represents one of the largest and most widely
interested development communities on the planet - (if you doubt me try
following a PHP mailing list for a couple of weeks - talk about AR!) my
question is this (actually these)

Are you using UML to design in VBA/VB/VB.net environments?
Is it "working"?

Are you using Unified Process methods in VBA/VB/VB.net environmets?
Again, is it working?

In your general experience, are methodologies enabiling or overhead?

rgrds
Bruce






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