Textbased Modeling
This is an incremental position paper for software developers, proposing a shift in modeling practices without new empirical results.
The paper argues that text-based modeling may be more efficient than graphical representations in software development, illustrating this with a textual version of UML state machines as Eclipse plugins.
As modeling becomes a crucial activity in software development the question may be asked whether currently used graphical representations are the best option to model systems efficiently. This position paper discusses the advantages of text-based modeling over commonly used graphical representations. It is inspired through the advent of new extensible development tools like Eclipse. The discussion is illustrated by showing a textual version of UML state machines as Eclipse plugins.