Love it or hate it UML is important for anyone involved (Architect/Developer/Whoever) – either you need to create designs based on UML and you need to understand that someone else has. Sure it has its challenges and for some specific things there are better solutions (DSL's – more on that some other day). I am "old school" and over the years have used Rational Rose (or whatever IBM has renamed it to since buying Rational out).
But as are aware Rational tools are very pricey and I was on the look out for something reasonable. Most people have heard of EA (no, not the game company) which is a decent tool and not too expensive (at least the Desktop edition).
Of course if you are stingy like me and want something completely free then check out StarUML which is an open source UML/MDA platform and is pretty decent. When you work with it enough you will find some annoying things – most of which has workarounds. There are one or two things it just cannot do, but I only have been using it for a few months now and am quite impressed. Is it better than the likes of EA or Rose, nope but it is pretty damn good for the price.
Similar posts to check out:
- June 16, 2011 -- Occasionally Connected Architecture (0)
When implementing an occasionally connected architecture for a solution, there are three fundamental requirements: Part of the overall solution, some smart client is deployed and installed on the desktop and a web only approach is not possible. The main rational being that a smart client can work in a disconnected mode which of course with a web application is not possible. Underlying infrastructure needs to be in place to support this. Infrastructure is not specifically networks and ser... - December 29, 2010 -- C++ Message queuing options? (1)
I am thinking of implementing a queue in one of the projects I am working on right now (sorry cannot go into more details until it gets published - hopefully in a few months). Anywyas, this is in C++ which needs to run on Ubuntu and my queueing experience (with C++ or otherwise) is only with MSMQ which is brilliant, but does not help me here as that run only on Windows. I also cannot use something like STL Queue as this will need to run across a number of machines and trying to sync between them... - November 6, 2010 -- MOOS (0)
I don't think many people have heard of MOOS (which stands of Mission Oriented Operating Suite); I have been working with it for the past few months as part of my dissertation. And I must admit, the more I play with it, the more impressed I am. It is quite simple and yet powerful.
Whilst MOOS's roots are in robotics (MRG) and embedded systems, I wonder if I can extend it to use it some of the grid computing scenarios. Maybe implement a pMapReduce or pHadoop? Or perhaps a .NET implementation. ...
Tags: .architecture
