<p>Does anybody use the Class Designer much in Visual Studio?</p>

<p>I have downloaded the Modeling Power Toys for 2005 and have been impressed with what I've seen so far. The MSDN Class Designer Blog doesn't seem to have been updated for a while but it still looks quite useful.</p>

<p>Is the Class Designer a quick way to build the basic application or should I just work out on paper and then start coding?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

[{'answer_id': 14400, 'author': 'Iain Holder', 'author_id': 1122, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1122', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Short answer: No.</p>\n\n<p>Longer answer: No, not at all.  There's a reason it hasn't been updated.</p>\n\n<p>[EDIT] @ MrBrutal - Sorry - do you mean to generate code or just represent a design?  Because I took your question as to generate code for you.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 14407, 'author': 'Tuoski', 'author_id': 1703, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1703', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I have tried it out couple of times, mainly for viewing existing classes.\nIf it would show all the relationships, it would be more usefull. Now it only shows inheritation.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 14408, 'author': 'Keith', 'author_id': 905, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/905', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I find it useful sometimes, more often for documentation afterwards.</p>\n\n<p>It's a new little utility, but I don't think you get the full functionality in VS Pro - I think you need Architect's Edition.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 14424, 'author': 'Jonas Follesø', 'author_id': 1199387, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1199387', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I've used it a couple of times to get some decent looking class diagrams to put in presentations/blogposts etc. But thats about it...</p>\n\n<p>Any suggestions on other simple UML/class diagram tools that is easy to use and create some nice looking diagrams? Must be able to generate diagrams from .NET code.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 15385, 'author': 'Phil Bachmann', 'author_id': 1855, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1855', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>The comments here suggest that few people find the class designer useful.</p>\n\n<p>Amusing to note that Microsoft designed the class designer to be a useful replacement to useless UML (UML diagrams being untrustworthy once they lose synchronisation with source code).</p>\n\n<p>The trouble with class diagrams is that they tell us what we already know.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 15409, 'author': 'Jon Limjap', 'author_id': 372, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/372', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I only use the class designer to display my existing classes, but I don't use it the other way, e.g., design your classes there then let it generate the code.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 15428, 'author': 'Orion Edwards', 'author_id': 234, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/234', 'pm_score': 5, 'selected': True, 'text': "<p>As a visualization tool, or for exploratory purposes (drawing up multiple options to see what they look like) it's not bad, but generally I find the object browser does fine for most stuff I care about.</p>\n\n<p>As a code generation tool, it's a terrible idea.</p>\n\n<p>The whole idea that we will design all our code structure first, then fill in the blanks with small bits of implementation is fundamentally broken.</p>\n\n<p>The only time you actually know what the code structure should look like, is if you've done the <strong>exact</strong> same thing before - however then you can just <strong>use</strong> your previous code, and you don't need to draw up any new code in any kind of designer.</p>\n\n<p>If you decide ahead of time to use a particular class structure before you've actually tried to solve the problem, there is a 100% chance that you will pick the wrong design, and shoot yourself in the foot.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 10749546, 'author': 'Dave Cousineau', 'author_id': 621316, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/621316', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I guess this is old, but I use it a lot. It could definitely be improved, but I find it extremely useful to be able to visualize my class structure, and to be able to jump to a specific class or method by clicking on it visually.</p>\n\n<p>It's also slightly easier to add classes/interfaces with than the solution explorer, although the new files always end up in the root folder, instead of the same folder as the CD.</p>\n\n<p>The main benefit I find is to be able to see a group of closely related classes at once. I think the best approach might be to have a single CD for each code folder/namespace.</p>\n"}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/14398', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/982/']