I'll agree with Paul with one caveat -- your design should be layered well enough that it's kind of obvious where to "stop" with providing detail in the diagram. For isntance, I generally employ the Facade
pattern quite a bit because it gives a good notion of where you can stop in providing detail at the highest level.
So, for instance, I'll often use a "database broker" facade that hides all of the details of O/R mapping for my objects, and I'll only show the presence of the facade (not any of the details) at the architectural level.
Likewise I'll usually do the same for UI (Showing lines on my diagrams coming in from a "controller" that is independent of the actual buttons and windows).
Kyle
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Kyle Brown,
Author of
Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere See my homepage at
http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.