UML IS BACK IN VISUAL STUDIO 2010

No more clunky interop with Visio like in VS 2005 and VS 2008.  UML is back in the Visual Studio Team Suite 2010 CTP.

You will need to install Visual Studio Team Suite 2010, which is all of the versions put together, Database, Developer, Architect and Test, then you will be able to view and experiment with the modeling projects component.

Utilizing UML in your game design can be a big benefit down the line, not so much when you do the initial effort, when you are all excited about your idea and everyone is in the groove.  But later, when you are successful, driving that expensive, high speed sports car, living large, you suddenly see the sales and traffic start to dip.  What to do, what to do?  Clearly you will need to hire consultants.  Why? Because your main developers are in rehab, the marketing team is lost in space, the graphic artists are off staring at their navels and your business partner just bought a seat on the Virgin Starship with a hot babe.  Well, if you kept your UML in tune with your design, this will save you enough money to pay for your next NetJet payment instead of giving to consultants.

In the UML tool you will see that, after opening a new modeling project, you can add one of the following to your project, normally you would start off by using the general Use Case Diagram, this is the highest level of diagrams:

In my next post, I will demonstrate the way to manipulate the Use Case Diagram.