Darren New wrote:
> where something that looks like UML can be 
> turned into source code and back again with the appropriate tool.

I'm constantly wondering why we don't have this yet.

In fact, why aren't we all programming by drawing flowchart diagrams, 
and defining the behavior of each box on them?

The compiler itself could look at each unit, determine what effects it 
has*, and tell you the end state as a result of running that chunk of 
code, making documentation unnecessary.  In fact, it might make catching 
bugs easier, since it would mention unintentional side effects.

*I realize that this would be impractical for sufficiently large code 
chunks (or for sufficiently large groups of code chunks), but it's easy 
enough to put a soft limit in there that the developer could adjust. 
The developer could set, say, the number of lines they want the 
displayed output to fit into and, for anything more complex than that, 
it simply wouldn't show it.

...Chambers

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