Re: UML Tools
- From: "H. S. Lahman" <hsl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:12:58 GMT
Responding to Architect wrote:
I'm investigating UML tools for the organization I work for. I'mThis is more of a google problem. I would suggest you narrow the search
interested in what automated UML tools people on this group use for
architecture, analysis and design modeling. I'd appreciate any
insight as well as to why you prefer that tool over others (cost,
functionality, integration, methodology support, etc.). I'm also
interested in how integrated your UML tools are with other software
development tools.
a bit, though. B-)
I agree - I cast the net a bit too wide. We're not looking to go the
translation/MDA route (at least not at present), but we are interested
in round-trip engineering. However, our main focus is support for
traceability between models, with of course version control and some
degree of model validation being considerations as well.
As a translationist I will try to restrain myself from saying: Don't Do That. B-)
Most of the high-end UML drawing tools will provide at least some degree of model validation. Without executable models, though, it is primarily syntactic. The round-trip tools offer more validation, but the link between static and dynamic views is still pretty loose and none that I know of analyze the code for consistency with the graphical models. (Some do provide specialized code generation for things like object state machines that will be fully consistent.)
Originally most UML drawing tools provided their own version control for the models. However, the recent trend (largely due to MDA) has been to provide interoperability with third party version control. You will have to look at the particular tools to see how they deal with it.
Traceability has always been a problem for UML. Packages just provide a what's-in-this-release perspective. However, the high-end requirements management tools like DOORS provide some degree of integration with the drawing tools. (I haven't looked at any for a decade; they weren't very good back then, but I would expect improvements have been made.)
For the sake of providing context, we've been using Visio, Word and
Excel for managing non-code artifacts the past couple of years. We
use Eclipse and CVS for IDE and source version control respectively.
We wanted to get some experience with the development process (which,
as I mentioned, is based on Unified Process) before going too far down
the tools road. We wanted the process to drive our tool choice, not
the other way around.
Eclipse already has a gazillion tools that will work better than VISIO et al. For example, Rationale's entire suite of development tools is integrated into Eclipse and I expect Telelogics' soon will be. So I would start my search with the IBM Partners.
--
There is nothing wrong with me that could
not be cured by a capful of Drano.
H. S. Lahman
hsl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Pathfinder Solutions
http://www.pathfindermda.com
blog: http://pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman
"Model-Based Translation: The Next Step in Agile Development". Email
info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for your copy.
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