Arrows imply a simple, one directional relationship that doesn't provide a lot of value in terms of communicating how a system works. Arrows have their place of course (UML sequence diagrams spring to mind) but if you are not describing something simple like a request or a query they gloss over key relationships. This is probably why UML itself has a dozen or so styles of arrow to describe class relationships.
isn't indicating the direction of a relationship (which you of course need to ascribe some meaning) more useful than non directional? But I agree, the meaning of an arrow while it can be informal at times, needs to be shared amongst the participants. For flow contrl / state machines, I use arrows to mean "from this state, you can get to this state", and then potentially annotate the arrow with a condition that would cause that transition.
Were you referring to the * ... 1 annotations you can use in class diagrams?
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Yup. Arrows are problematic when you are trying to represent control flow. Best to just avoid them... go with a line :-)
Why do you think arrows are problematic for control flow? I actually always use arrows (in every diagram), almost never just lines.
Arrows imply a simple, one directional relationship that doesn't provide a lot of value in terms of communicating how a system works. Arrows have their place of course (UML sequence diagrams spring to mind) but if you are not describing something simple like a request or a query they gloss over key relationships. This is probably why UML itself has a dozen or so styles of arrow to describe class relationships.
isn't indicating the direction of a relationship (which you of course need to ascribe some meaning) more useful than non directional? But I agree, the meaning of an arrow while it can be informal at times, needs to be shared amongst the participants. For flow contrl / state machines, I use arrows to mean "from this state, you can get to this state", and then potentially annotate the arrow with a condition that would cause that transition.
Were you referring to the * ... 1 annotations you can use in class diagrams?