Code Smell 47 — Diagrams

Diagrams are not code. They cannot be a code smell. They are just Diagram Smells.

Photo by Nick Seagrave on Unsplash

Problems

• Maintainability
• Trash code
• Code Duplication
• Diagrams focus only on structure (accidental) and not behavior (essential).

Solutions

1. Use diagrams only to communicate ideas with other humans.
2. Program on your favorite IDE.
3. Thrash all diagrams. Even the ones generated from the source code.
4. Trust your tests. They are alive and well maintained.
5. Use Domain Driven Design technique.

Sample Code

Wrong

Right

Detection

We can remove all code annotations and forbid them by policy.

Examples

• Automatic Code Generators

Conclusion

Designing is a contact sport. We need to prototype and learn from our running models.

Papers and JPGs don’t run. They live in the utopic world where everything works smoothly.

CASE was a very hot trend back in the 90s. No good system was developed with these tools.

Relations

Code Smell 25 — Pattern Abusers

Code Smell 01 — Anemic Models

More info

Laziness II: Code Wizards

Computer-aided software engineering

Domain-driven design

The Diagram is Not the Model. The model is not the diagram. It is an abstraction, a set of concepts and relationships between them.

Eric Evans

Software Engineering Great Quotes

This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.

How to Find the Stinky parts of your Code