I can't say anything
about Select, but we are using (Ir)Rational Rose here - a sometimes harrowing
but necessary experience. Harrowing, because of numerous little bugs in the
software, workflows which work only under certain circumstances and not others,
and certain features only partially implemented (like roundtrip engineering).
Necessary, because in any medium size or larger project the UML models and
diagrams are an invaluable tool for understanding what's going on. I personally
like to first look at the big picture, than hack up a few prototype
implementation classes, and then combine them and make model and class design
coherent. Rational certainly does allow us to do this (although not as easily as
we would wish). Of course it integrates better with other rational tools (e.g.
clearcase) than other UML modeling apps.
I have been using
MagicDraw a bit, mostly for reverse engineering which was not quite as well
supported by Rational. It doesn't have the number of features that Rational has,
but is certainly an interesting alternative for smaller projects (and much less
expensive). I have to amend that we are in the process of installing the latest
update of Rational, which seems to take care of many concerns that we had and
adds features like better roundtrip engineering, better integration with tools
like jbuilder, and JSP support (caveat emptor - we have not used this
version yet, will know more in a couple of weeks) which can be a major headache
because it doesn't easily fit in the typical class model.
So despite my
irreverence, (ir)rational Rose helps us as a group to document the model and
keep track of the overall structure of the project.
If you go with Rose,
make sure it's the latest version - it certainly seems to make life considerable
easier (and be less irrational)
Cheers
--peter
P.S. A coworker just
told me that he used Select a couple of years ago - it was really clunky
then. People here had better experience with togetherj than select. Of
course this is all coming from opinionated people like myself
...
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 7:29 AM
To: Orion-Interest
Subject: Off-topic: UML Tools...Help!!!Hi,I have been asked by my manager to evaluate some UML modelling tools: Rational Rose and Select. However, I have never really used UML so I probably wasn't the best person to ask :)So, if anyone could tell me any pros and cons of these packages I would appreciate it. Developers are gonna be using JBuilder 5 Enterprise, and the idea would be to farm out classes/beans you have designed and structured in the UML model.Any information or experiences you would like to share would be appreciated as I don't have a clue :)Thanks,Johnny
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