Class Designer in Whidbey and UML

The Class Designer is not a UML tool but uses the UML notation where it makes sense. The primary audience for this tool is the Visual Studio developer.  The underlying meta-model behind the Class Designer is the CLR Type System and not the UML meta-model. This provides for a seamless synchronization between the code and the diagram without having to spit “designer goo” in the code. This also makes it easy for us to use the “code is the master“ paradigm. We only store the visual information in the diagram file and sync the diagram to changes in code as and when it happens.

Early feedback from developers have been very positive. Of course, a small minority feel that not following the UML standards will make them not want to use this tool. I am curious to find out why that is so. I am especially eager to get responses from developers on this issue.

Cheers,

Ramesh.