UML Operator Blog

As a Solution Architect and Engineer, I have to deal with the concepts of User Interface (UI) solution & design problems. Since 2005, as Mobile Devices and Responsive Web approaches became part of our toolbelt, more challenges were added to our delivery objectives. Hype Risks Just like any time in the Technology Hype Curve, humans get confused and over "-hype" or "-sell" new technologies. To make matters worse for us as Solution Architects and/or Engineers, they confuse UI versus UX (User Experience). As an Enterprise Architect working in Advanced Analytics, Machine Learning, and AI for over 15 years, we cannot afford to mix up UI vs UX! UI design primarily deals with the look and feel of the product, focusing on the visual elements that users interact with. UX design is a broader concept that encompasses the entire user journey and aims to enhance the overall experience of using a product. Thus, UX involves understanding the users, and their needs, and ensuring...

Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) and Unified Modeling Language (UML) provide means for Systems and Software Architects/Engineers to describe their architecture using many different methods and standards. As an Architect and Engineer, I have been doing this for more than 30 years. So What Is A Story? A story is a narrative, either real or fictional, that is told or written to entertain, inform, educate, or convey a message. It typically involves a sequence of events or experiences that are connected in some way, often following a structure that includes a beginning, middle, and end. A story typically includes various elements such as characters (who the story is about), a setting (where and when the story takes place), a plot (the sequence of events or the storyline), conflict or challenges that the characters face, and a resolution or conclusion that brings the story to a close. Stories can take many forms, including novels, short stories, folktales, myths, fables, plays, mov...

As a child in the 60's and 70's, on the east coast of Florida and around the Space Center, I dreamed of being an Architectural Engineer. My childhood vision was to design the first under water communities off the continental shelf. With an understanding of architectural engineering and marine biology, we could apply living under water to space stations and planetary living. Later in the 70's, going to school with a major in Architectural Engineering with minor in Marine Biology, and with the economy at that time, it became too much to handle and my interest switched to Business and Finance. Funding such dreams became my next challenge. After school, I went to work for a friend of my father, Sol Price. He had a vision of building a Membership Warehouse Club, which was called Price Club. You now know this as Costco. With my passion still in Architecture Design, I started using my experience with Computer Aided Design (CAD) as a side benefit in our Business's Operations. I...

 I was given an interesting challenge in our UML Operator Channel , from the Telling A Story Deep Div e video. In their modeling, they try to identify structure through behavior. They've  identified several use cases and each use case has a communication diagram (e.g., they get some kind of a set of communication diagrams with already selected entities and messages between them). At the next stage, they try to identify the conceptual structure through a class diagram or a custom diagram. They then throw on the diagram the already created classes that were created in the process of building communication diagrams and try to use the Sparx EA insert "Related Elements" and as a result get an Association relationship model. However, they would like to see all the messages that appear in the various communication diagrams associated with this Association. The Problem One word may be "Conflict". Unless they have separate "associations" between elements, each ...

In this post, we are going to touch on, briefly and I mean briefly, several Frameworks to consider pertain to getting into our Software and Systems Architect Series on our UML Operator Channel . We will refer back to this post during the course of our demonstrations. To Begin...Do Not Get Carried Away! When the process is lost, there is good practice. When good practice is lost, there are rules. When rules are lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the beginning of chaos. TOGAF The first is TOGAF, The Open Group Architecture Framework. I recommend studying and achieving a certification in TOGAF. In my opinion, this was the best investment I made over my careers. TOGAF is a widely used framework for enterprise architecture. It offers a methodology and set of supporting tools for developing a wide range of architectures. I couple TOGAF with the idea or concepts of C4 Modeling, BPMN, SAFe, and even PMBOK. Zachman Framework The Zachman Framework is an approach to enterprise architect...

Ask anyone, even ChatGPT, and they will tell you that GIGO stands for "Garbage In, Garbage Out." It's a concept used primarily in computer science and information technology to emphasize the importance of input quality in producing meaningful and accurate output. In essence, it suggests that if you input poor-quality or flawed data into a system or process, the output or results will also be flawed or of low quality. No matter how sophisticated a system is, if the input it receives is incorrect, incomplete, or inaccurate, the output it generates will reflect those deficiencies. This principle highlights the critical need for accurate and reliable data as the foundation for obtaining valuable, valid, and dependable results from any computational or information system. Okay, so most of us have heard this term, so why do most of us seem to forget it? I keep walking into delivery exercises, requirements elicitation, and general delivery practices, and keep seeing "garbag...

2023 was a exiting year for me and our team. I retired at the start of the year and I helped some people deliver their business objectives. In 2024 I start a new chapter in my life and pass my knowledge and experience on. Out of school in the late 70's, I went to work for Sol Price, founder of Price Club which you now know as Costco. Sol taught me more in 6 months than any University Professor, and one thing was "The Cost of Labor". In the early 80's I was constantly going up to him with the latest technologies and advancements in computing. He hated IT due to the hype and expense. Afterall, he was the only one whome was succesful in the Membership Club business. In school we learn about Return On Investment (ROI) and Cost Of Ownership (COO), however "hype" can get the best of all of us. So I learned that each time I took a technology item (new computers, software, or systems), I always started with the COO and ROI first in our conversations. Being in...