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JDJ asks ... IBM-rational: interview with Grady Booch. (Q & A).

Article Excerpt
JDJ asked Grady Booch of UML and Rational fame to answer your toughest questions. One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language (UML), Booch is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software architecture, modeling, and software engineering processes.

Arun Kumar: The AOP design method is improving a lot in project development phases. Can you suggest some methods for UML testing?

Grady Booch: There's a testing profile for the UML underway inside the OMG but, even now, the current practice is toward greater visualization in the testing process. From the outside in, this involves applying use cases and then their associated behavioral diagrams to assert a test case; from the inside out (meaning, in the debugging of a system), XDE has facilities to create sequence diagrams from a running system, thus facilitating tracking down errant behavior, even in a distributed system.

Sanjay Choudhary: I'm a great fan of yours and have been reading your books since 1996. My question is: Why do we need collaboration diagrams? When should we use them? I always try to convey my point using the sequence diagram. I read a couple of books but none gave a satisfactory answer.

Booch: I tend to use collaboration diagrams when it's important to indicate the structural relationships among objects; most of the time, I too use sequence diagrams, but when there are structural relationships among the associated objects, it helps to show them in collaboration.

James McGovern: As a series editor for a prestigious publisher, you are aware of the decline in the technology book marketplace. What should people be reading and publishers publishing?

Booch: As I walk down the aisles of Borders and Barnes & Noble...