Re: Is UML of any value in SW-Projects?
On Dec 8, 8:24 pm, Dombo <do...@disposable.invalid> wrote:
Op 08-Dec-10 11:58, James Kanze schreef:
On Dec 7, 10:45 pm, Dombo<do...@disposable.invalid> wrote:
Op 07-Dec-10 10:29, James Kanze schreef:
Interesting. To me Rational has always left impression of company that
makes most terrible tools available.
Terrible in what way? And compared to what?
I can't say I have fond memories of Rational Rose. I has been about five
years since I used Rose, so things may have improved for the better, but
back then it was rather prone to crash.
On what platform? I was using it almost ten years ago, under
Solaris on a Sparc, and I never saw it crash.
It was on a Windows platform. But even though I'm not the biggest fan of
Microsoft I don't think Windows was to blame here. We had a strong
suspicion that the combination with RequisitePro (also a Rational
product) was the culprit.
I'm not saying that Windows was the culprit, but Rational's
integration into Windows. Back before they joined forces,
I remember that Purify was very stable, but both ClearCase and
Rational had problems with stability. Over time, both seem to
have solved their problems, at least on Solaris. But it does
suggest that they do have problems with their process, which
could result in problems when porting to a different platform.
Stability issues aside it wasn't
exactly the most pleasant piece of software I have ever used. Some
dislike the comments that Rose puts in the generated code to link the
model with the code, but I can live with that.
It's a question of how you configure your editor, I think. At
the time, I was using emacs, and configured it so that the Rose
generated comments were dark gray (on a dark green background),
and hardly visible. Before that, they were annoying (but still
tolerable).
Most other UML tools (MagicDraw, UML Studio and a couple of others) I
have used were more stable and in my opinion more user friendly, but
were pretty useless for round-trip engineering (at least in combination
with C++).
The only other tool I've actually used is Together, and
I haven't used it that much. On a Sparc under Solaris, it was
very un-user friendly, because of the horrible performance; the
performance was such that I can't judge other aspects.
If any of the others are free, I might give them a try. Round
trip is nice, but just maintaining your headers 100% in the tool
(no round-trip, because you regenerated the headers from scratch
each time) is a valid option as well.
None of the above tool are free, which in the professional context I
don't mind (ignoring the hassle with the purchasing department) as long
as the cost can be justified by productivity gains.
Agreed. But I'd be giving it a try in a personal context, for
my own knowledge.
Free UML tools I know are ArgoUML, StarUML and Topcased. I only played
with those tools and never used them in real projects so I cannot really
pass a verdict on any of those tools. My first impressions were that
ArgoUML seemed to be too limited (lacking support for UML 2.0), StarUML
appeared to be a bit more useful but doesn't seem to be actively
developed anymore and Topcased appeared to be the most ambitious &
promising.
If your ambitions go beyond just a using diagramming tool to document
your design the qualities of the tool is itself is only one
consideration. Even with the best tools the success will depend largely
on how willing the whole development organization is to integrate those
tools in their development process and educate (convince) the people who
are supposed to use these tools. That requires time, money and a
long-term vision; things that are in short supply in many organizations.
Don't I know it. I used to be a contractor, and have worked in
many different firms. Only two bought into using Rose. (Not by
chance, those two produced the best quality software I've been
involved in.)
--
James Kanze