Summary

Building upon the realization that conventional means of software design today amount to nothing more than fancy whiteboards, we examine the pitfalls, disadvantages, and consequences of designing software using such tools.

This post is support material for Towards Authoritative Software Design.

Abstract

In this paper we examine the current state of affairs in Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools specifically aimed at software design. We look at individual tools as well as entire categories of tools with respect to applicability and effectiveness, and we notice their abject inadequacy.

This post is support material for Towards Authoritative Software Design.

The Static Universe

The first model of cosmology that I was exposed to, as a small child, was that of the static universe, because that's all my father knew. According to that model, the universe is infinite in all directions, it is eternal, and it is not going anywhere. Of course I accepted it, because that is what kids do: accept everything presented to them as fact.

The Expanding Universe

Then, during elementary school, I heard of the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe; this new model of cosmology made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but again I accepted it, because a) that's what the scientists said, and b) I could go to my father and tell him that he is wrong.

GitLab allows the insertion of images in code review comments. They make it really easy: if you have an image on the clipboard, you can just paste it into a comment. I suppose the feature exists so that programmers can exchange screenshots, graphs, etc. to explain complicated matters during code review.

I like to use this feature to post memes.

Here is my collection of the most useful code review meme pictures:

Abstract

The need is identified for programmatically ascertaining the immutability of certain objects used in situations where they are expected to be immutable, in languages like C# and Java. The technicalities of immutability assessment are discussed. A mechanism is described for achieving it.

Summary

Type names as reported by the dotnet runtime are in a cryptic, non-human-readable format. Attempts by many to solve this problem have generally been naive, incomplete, and clunky. A library that gets the job done right is presented.