>* do you need a building plan for the construction of a dog house?
>* how about a 100 storey building, would you dare to build it without a buildig plan?

Hi Simple,

FMFJI, using VS2005 Team Suite, there are types of classes that needs to be designed initially using Class Designer like Domain Classes which are conceived mentally so you need to start with abstract class. However, there are classes that should be drawn out of existing code especially now that there are tools that can generate codes automatically for you. In an nTier environment for instance, DAL can be generated by 3rd party tools wherein class diagrams are not yet done. VS2005 can do both "From Code to Class Diagrams" and "From Class Diagrams to Code".

IMO, MS introduces how to do RAD without sacrificing good planning. And Class Diagrams can be done later depending on the types of class.