Chapter 18. Modeling with the Class Designer

Traditionally, software modeling has been performed separately from coding, often during a design phase that is completed before coding begins. In many cases, the various modeling diagrams constructed during design are not kept up to date as the development progresses, and they quickly lose their value.

The Class Designer in Visual Studio 2008 brings modeling into the IDE, as an activity that can be performed at any time during a development project. Class diagrams are constructed dynamically from the source code, which means that they are always up to date. Any change made to the source code is immediately reflected in the class diagram, and any change to the diagram is also made to the code.

This chapter looks in detail at the Class Designer and explains how you can use it to design, visualize, and refactor your class architecture.