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Feedback on size of Class Diagrams

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I would like to get feedback on the typical number of shapes you have in a class diagram - is it 10, 25, 50, 100 that you'll be actively using? The reason for this is that we want to optimize the performance for a typical class diagram while you are in active development (as opposed to diagrams that are created for documentation purpose).

My personal preference is to have a diagram of not more than 10-15 shapes that represents the classes I am currently working on. Of course when I want to visualize an existing project, I may want to look at most if not all of the classes in one diagram and see how they are related. But I will just use that as a reference and not the diagram I am actively working on.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2004
    Because a class diagram doesn't do much to talk about how the different properties and methods interact with each other.
  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2004
    Well, a diagram is just a view on the underlying model. If we accept this, then the number of classes in the model and the number of classes in the diagram can be different numbers. For instance, you can choose to show only a subset of your model in a given diagram.

    The number of classes in a diagram must be low enough so a reader can understand the diagram without much effort. I would say that 15-20 is a reasonable upper limit. However, the number of classes in the model can be (and often is) in the hundreds or even more.
  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2004
    In general 15-20 is probably fairly reasonable for day to day work, however, there are certainly going to be times where many more classes will need to be displayed.

    One thing I've noticed is that there doesn't appear to be an easy way to break the diagram up for printing. Visio has some nice preview lines that shows where the breaks are. If you get a diagram over 10-15 classes the need to print across multiple pages grows.
  • Anonymous
    July 07, 2004
    I'd also second Tim's suggestion.

    I have posted several of these items to the Visual Studio 2005 Feedback Center, for consideration:

    http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/default.aspx
  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2004
    I third Tim's suggestion and feel one should not be restricted to 10-15 classes though the product should be optimized ot handle a small number around that range but should be able to support larger number.

    I have used Rational Rose (and now XDE) a lot and would like something similar both in terms of a feature set and also capabilities such as printing. It would be fair to say a large number or Architects and Designers would be comfortable with Rose. Just the class view part of VS 2005 Beta1 unfortunately has a lot left to be desired.
  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2004
    Thanks for all of your feedback.

    Amit:
    This version of Class Designer is targeted towards developers. It helps them be more productive by visualizing existing code, create new types and refactor code. From our studies we found that most developers are comfortable with class diagrams that speak "their (coding) language" and have a tight integration with live code. It is not intended to be a conceptual modeling tool.

    Cheers,
    Ramesh.
  • Anonymous
    July 23, 2004
    Thanks again for the feedback. It seems the consensus is optimizing around 15 shapes per diagram.

    Chris, thanks for all your feedback you have provided in addition to this request. Please keep them coming. Of course, due to schedule constraints we will be limited in our ability to take action on some/most of your feedback for V1 but it will definitely help us decide on what we should be implementing in V2.

    Cheers,
    Ramesh.