[barrystaes]

As a Software-Developer this article made sense, although I would want it to include a few more useful UML diagrams. Models is the keyword here to me, not "visual".

    User Feature -> Feature Model -> Architecture Model -> Source Code

Speaking from a Software-Analyst perspective, models are used througout. Many complex projects need a model of functionality, to bridge understanding between stakeholders' and developers' regarding the (agreed upon) required feature in a given problem domain. The resulting models and code should be on par.

Some buzzwords to google: - Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) - Model Driven Architecture (MDA) - Model Based System Engineering (MBSE)

In theory, the developer output is a function of the desired functionality. If the functionality fits a parsable model, we should be able to transcode this into sourcecode. In a nutshell this is can be a result from adoption of MDA and/or MBSE.

In a nutshell, I believe software development should happen from models to "generate" code, that then can be augumented by software developers. Updates from a model should result in updated code.