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magine that you are on a team that that has been tasked with creating an online

ID: 3561905 • Letter: M

Question

magine that you are on a team that that has been tasked with creating an online course delivery system. One of your coworkers wants to model the entire course in UML. Another coworker disagrees with the use of UML and would rather use pseudocode exclusively. Analyze both strategies and suggest at least two (2) major benefits of using UML as well as two (2) major benefits of using pseudocode. Recommend the approach you would suggest in the given scenario and provide a rationale for your response. Select the single diagram type within UML that you believe to be the most useful when developing a computer program. Provide a rationale for your selection.

Explanation / Answer

UML diagrams and pseudocode often have the same level of expressiveness, but differ in linearization. Pseudocode is linear (i.e. a sequence of lines with instructions), a flowchart is not. Therefore, UML diagrams are a higher abstraction level, used before writing pseudocode or for documentation.

UML diagrams have, in my opinion, two strong advantages over pseudocode: Firstly, they are graphical. Many non-technical people have a strong fear of structured text, but not of graphical descriptions, so UML diagrams will sit much nicer with them. Secondly, UML diagrams are much better at expressing meta-considerations such as showing the main line of execution as opposed to branches.

Pseudo-code allows for an intermediate step between a human language description of an algorithm and a programming language description of the algorithm. It is often a good way for non-programmers to understand the programming process.

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