I use UML to do quick brain storming and when exploring software. While I’ve not posted many write ups here (grad-school!),  I generally don’t want to invest a lot of time in my UML diagrams and only sometimes do I even want to save them.

Often times, especially lately, I’ve been drawing on a whiteboard that I keep in my office.  I find this to be efficient (even over paper because I’d end up throwing it away).

In one of my current grad-school classes, we are using “Object-Oriented Design & Patterns” by Cay S. Horstmann as the class text book. I’ve enjoyed the book and it provides some decent examples. I bring the book up because apparently the author of the book created a UML package called Violet UML. I’ve found this to be the best software based UML brain-storming software I’ve ever found. Here are my reasons:

• It loads quickly
• I can efficiently draw diagrams without warnings or complex menus to navigate though.
• The lack of UML rules enforcement means that I can draw partial diagrams; diagrams that mean nothing out of context.
• It’s open source
• So far, its more stable / reliable to ArgoUML

If you are looking for a UML package, I must recommend this. I searched and searched for a UML package a while back and I never came up with this. I looked at everything, no matter what and still never found it. So, if you like it, please spread the word (via your own blog, twitter, facebook, etc). I think it is well done software and worth some attention.

http://violet.sourceforge.net/

Design Patterns, Design Tip, Graduate School, Open Source Project, Tips Grad-School, Open Source, Software, SourceForge, UML

The more I work with design patterns*, the more I come to respect them as a design tool. For grad-school, I’m writing a DVCS and I needed some information on ORM patterns. While I’m not sure if this is a real term, I Googled it and found a great article on Invisible to the eye.

The article can be found at: http://giorgiosironi.blogspot.com/2009/08/10-orm-patterns-components-of-object.html

For my project, I’m mainly interested in the Data Mapper and the Table Data Gateway. Both are patterns from Martin Folwer’s book Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture.

While I’ve not read the book yet, I think I might… After classes…. Anyway, I mostly wanted to share on the 10 ROM patterns listed at Invisible to the eye.

*If  you’d like a good intro to design patterns, I love Head First Design Patterns

Design Patterns, Design Tip, Graduate School, Tips Books, Design Patterns, DVCS, Grad-School, ORM

I wanted to post a bit of a status update. There hasn’t been any new writing on this site for a while and I want to apologize about that — especially since I stopped right in the middle of my Firefox research.

I do intend to continue the pursuit; however, it has taken a backseat to my Graduate studies for the time being. I don’t want to go in to too much detail, but this term I’ve enrolled in two classes instead of just one.

Hang on to the RSS feed, I’ll be back to it shortly.

Graduate School, Random

Since I graduated from my undergraduate program, I’ve been looking forward to enrolling in a masters program. I’ve put this desire far behind other things that have come up and I’ve decided that this year is the year.

I began by looking at different masters programs in my area. Below are some of the schools and programs that I’ve looked at. Ultimately, I’ve selected DePaul. I’ve know/known of a lot of people who have gone there and while they might not be the best they seem very good. I’m not MIT material, so I think that very good will suite me well.

DePaul [Selected]

There is no one reason that I selected DePaul. I was looking around the CDM building and it felt like a good school. I had some interaction with a professor and that interaction was positive and they fit most of my criteria that I was looking for in a graduate school. It wasn’t a perfect fit but I don’t think that any school would be…

I’ve selected the Software Engineering degree because I think of my self more as a software engineer than a computer scientist. I’ve posted both links for those that are interested.

http://www.cdm.depaul.edu/academics/Pages/MSinSoftwareEngineering.aspx

http://www.cdm.depaul.edu/academics/Pages/MSinComputerScience.aspx

Loyola

Loyola is further from my home than DePaul is; this was the biggest reason that Loyola lost out to DePaul.  But furthermore, they didn’t have a M.S. of Software Engineering degree. They have similar degrees but the Software Engineering title became important to me.

http://www.luc.edu/cs/_academics_graduate.shtml

Illinois Institute Of Technology

The campus is too far from my home. It’d be difficult to attend classes and continue working.

http://www.iit.edu/graduate_admission/programs/areas_of_study/telecom_software_engineering.shtml

Northwestern

Northwestern isn’t a likely candidate. They were an early favorite but they don’t seem to put much effort in their science degrees… They are mostly known for their business programs… Their MBA program is one of the best, according to many…

http://www.scs.northwestern.edu/grad/mscis/

Roosevelt

Roosevelt is not likely for me because they are more of a business school then a technical or general university.

http://cs.roosevelt.edu/academics/compsci/degrees/csms.html

Stack Overflow

Yes, I know stack Overflow isn’t a university. I posted some questions to gather information from the community… I wanted to share the links…

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/808546/grad-school-for-compsci-and-or-software-engineering

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/49054/computer-science-versus-software-engineering-which

Graduate School, Random Grad-School, School