She conducted an excellent interview-based study of 50 software developers in a wide variety of industries and geographical locations. Her key question was, "Do you use UML".She found that only 15 out of 50 use it in some way, and none use it wholeheartedly.A total of 11 use it selectively, adapting it as necessary depending on the audience. Of this group use of diagram types was: Class diagrams: 7, sequence diagrams: 6, activity diagrams: 6, state diagrams: 2 and use case diagrams: 1.Only 3 used it for code generation; these were generally in the context of product lines and embedded software. Such users, however, tended not to use it for early phases of design, only for generation.One used it in what she called 'retrofit' mode, i.e. "Not unless the client demands it for some reason".That leaves the 35 software developers who do not use it (70%). Some reported historical use, and some of these did in fact model using their own notation.The main complaints were that it is unnecessarily complex, lacks and ability to represent the whole system, and has difficulties when it comes to synchronization of artifacts. There were also comments about certain diagram types, such as state machines being only used as an aid to thinking. In general, diagram types were seen as not working well together.She did comment on the fact that UML is widely taught in educational programs.
Como Tijs van der Storm comenta, quizá Marian esté martillando los últimos clavos en el ataúd de UML...
También coinciden en sus comentarios James Noble, Alex Nederlof, y Leif Singer, entre otros. Éste último apunta al uso de UML en educación registrado por Marian, como muchas veces, y en muchos aspectos, corriendo detrás de la situación real.
