[fennecfoxy]

True but I don't bother with a unified system, just a mermaid diagram. I work in web though, so perhaps if I went back to embedded (which I did only a short while) or something else when a project is planned in it entirety rather than growing organically/reacting to customers needs/trends/the whims of management.

[quietbritishjim]

I just looked at Mermaid and it seems to as close to UML as I meant by my previous comment. Just look at this class diagram [1]: triangle-ended arrows for parent/child, the classic UML class box of name/attributes/methods, stereotypes in <<double angle brackets>>, etc. The text even mentions UML. I'm not a JS dev so tend to use PlantUML instead - which is also UML based, as the name implies.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unified system". If you mean some sort of giant data store of design/architecture where different diagrams are linked to each other, then I'm certainly NOT advocating that. "Archimate experience" is basically a red flag against both a person and the organisation they work for IMO.

(I once briefly contracted for a large company and bumped into a "software architect" in a kitchenette one day. What's your software development background, I asked him. He said: oh no, I can't code. D-: He spent all day fussing with diagrams that surely would be ignored by anyone doing the actual work.)

[1] https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/classDiagram.html

[WorldMaker]

The "unified" UML system is referring to things like Rose (also mentioned indirectly several more comments up) where they'd reflect into code and auto-build diagrams and also auto-build/auto-update code from diagrams.

[91bananas]

I've been at this 16 years. I've seen one planned project in that 16 years that stuck anywhere near the initial plan. They always grow with the whims of someone.