[Sigia-l] Diagramming tools?

[Ziya Oz]

Will Parker:

>"Prototype" as in coding usable drafts in
> the dev environment for the intended platform?

Nooo. (At least in one contract that I can remember now I even put in a
clause that said that I owned the prototype so that they couldn't base any
production code on it.) Prototype should never be mixed with deployable code
base, even when they are in the same language/platform, for all the obvious
reasons you can surmise. I am not prototyping for the developers, though
they get to have it as well. The prototype serves many purposes and
constituents during its lifecycle and thus takes on different levels of
specificity appropriate for the context.

> Paper cutouts?  

Never done it. Why would I bother? I can draw on paper or on screen as fast
as I can cut and paste.

> Detailed text outlines of each of the the desired behaviors,
> interactions and states of the software?

Only under torture. To resort to prose to illuminate an interactive artifact
in the early part of 21st century is torture itself.

> we recently spent a couple of happy days agreeing  with one another about the
> deep virtues of designing with pencil and  paper.

Well, it doesn't count if you haven't sung Kumbaya. Are you now claiming
pencil and paper as the 'obvious industry standard'? You know, most IAs
working in this particular building in North Dakota use pencil and paper...
overwhelmingly.

In design school, we used to do the speed drawing thang: 15, 30, 60 second
rapid sketching of the human form. You get to be very good at blocking form
and structure after a while, and of course learn a bit about naked bodies as
well. :-) Pencil and paper are your friends, though as work-products I'd
never show them to clients. One exception is sometimes I rough sketch ideas
with a digital tablet or use the effect in Illustrator that wiggles the
lines (whatever that's called) to create a semi-hand-drawn effect to obscure
things.

> I'm beginning to think that there valid arguments against
> prototyping in a format that can be directly re-used in the final
> product.

The archives here are filled with my rants on this very notion going over
years: design vs. implementation; oil vs. vinegar.
 
> My deepest disagreement with the functional design of Visio has
> nothing to do with its obtuse, lard-filled UI -- it's that Visio's
> integration with Visual Studio just makes it too easy to go from a
> carelessly-reviewed prototype straight to functional code.

Well then, brace yourself for the coming of Blend!
 
> There's agile, and then there's just plain reckless driving.

Oooh, did you just personally attack, insult and maim otherwise upstanding
agile practitioners?

----
Ziya

Complexity is simple.