

Ask HN: How do you sketch out your software ideas? - Focalise

Is UML where it&#x27;s at? Simply pseudocode perhaps?
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mtmail
It's the intent of UML, but I think most developers don't use it. There are
some interesting comments (including a book author on the topic) in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624601)

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comboy
Sheet of paper or a text file. Maybe freemind sometimes.

Anything more complicated than that takes my precious cpu cycles away from the
thing I'm trying to focus on.

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mindcrime
I wouldn't use UML for high level / rough idea stuff, although I am a fan of
UML to some degree. I don't use it as much as I used to, however.

That said, I go the old fashioned way for sketching out ideas: an artists
sketchpad, some drafting pencils, a box of colored pencils, a straightedge,
etc. I mostly just draw boxes, lines and arrows. Interestingly enough, this
actually can (at times) be a sort of "pseudo-UML".

