Originally posted by Stefan Bell:
Can somebody explain whiteboard modeling? I believe it is designing on a whiteboard and then taking a digital picture of it?
Whiteboard modeling is just that -- modeling on a whiteboard. It might involve taking a digital photograph of the outcome for extended memory or formal documentation purposes, but that's not really part of the modeling itself anymore.
Originally posted by Stefan Bell:
Does this only happen in small shops?
Would you call a 100,000-employee Fortune 500 company "small"? How about another 70,000-employee Fortune 500 company? I'm employed by one and working for the other right now, and we are doing whiteboard modeling every now and then. Then again, we're also doing pen-and-paper modeling and we do use a CASE tool for drawing pretty, perfectly rectangular, colored boxes as well -- every now and then.
Originally posted by Stefan Bell:
Do you then put it in a software tool (Rose, XDE) or is that the model, if so what happens with refactoring and such?
As I said, we do use a CASE tool. However, we only maintain a domain model in electronic form. Drawing full-blown class diagrams (let alone sequence or collaboration diagrams) of each and every class in the system would be overkill and would slow us down significantly. If you're worried that a refactoring would require you to redraw a bunch of class diagrams,
you should seriously evaluate whether you're modeling on a too detailed level.