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617

answers:

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In school I have learned that creating UML Diagrams/Models is great design practice before taking on a project. I have found it quite useful myself, in doing so I tackle projects much faster, and my overall design tends to be better.

I've noticed a basic redundancy issue when it comes to writing code. In Visio you can be very descriptive in your Models. Your basic outlines for your classes can include C# variable types/methods. They are detailed enough that Visio has you choose whether it is C# or VB.

My Question is, with this much detail, does there exist an importing technique between Visio and Visual Studio 2008? It seems like you could import that simple model as an outline for classes in Visual Studio, with everything declared except for the actual code within Methods. This would be very useful, especially when it comes to design steps for creating a program. My classes/variables/methods would already be declared for me. I would just have to go back and write the meat of the code.

I've done some searching on the subject and haven't turned up much, it seems like Microsoft would have included a feature to do this.

+2  A: 

From the Visual Studio Team System 2008 and Visio FAQ:

Can I Migrate Visio UML Diagrams to Visual Studio 2008? Visual Studio 2008 does not include support for migrating UML diagrams directly. If you have static structure UML diagrams, you can use Visio for Enterprise Architects to generate code based on the model. Then you can open the code in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture edition and create class diagrams from the generated code. For more information, see Working with Class Diagrams.

Other UML diagram types are not supported for migrating model information to Visual Studio 2008.

SwDevMan81
+1  A: 

You might want to post in the VS 2010 arch forum to ask about support for this in a future release for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. It won't be in the RTM version, but the product team should provide you an update about this feature:

Visual Studio 2010 Architectural Discovery & Modeling Tools forum at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsarch/threads

Esther Fan - MSFT