UML Weekend Crash Course™ - To Parent Directory

Session 30—UML Modeling Tools 309
sizes. Costs range from free to over $5,000. As with any product, you often get what you
pay for. But the fact is that not all of us need the best or the most expensive or the most
popular. Frankly, some of the low-end products are really worth taking a close look at. So
I’ve provided some evaluation criteria to assist you in your discussions with vendors and in
your own evaluations of the products you want to investigate.
The basics
First I cover the features that should pretty much be provided by every modeling tool. The
distinctions come in how they implement them. Modeling tool vendors will usually give you
access to an evaluation copy of their software. Often, it is as simple as downloading it from
their site. I’ll provide you a convenient site to gain access to most of the existing tools at
the end of this session.
Type and version of the UML supported
As of this printing, the current UML version is 1.4. UML 1.5 is due to be completed by OMG
sometime in 2002, with UML 2.0 to follow after that. Since there are generally schedule
delays with updates to the UML spec, UML 2.0 will probably not be official until sometime
in 2003.The real question is whether the tool really supports 1.4. A substantial number of
changes exist between 1.3 and 1.4. Many tools seem to have a blend of both.
Use the diagram notations in this book to help you verify the support. Get an evaluation
copy of the product and create one of each of the diagrams to try out the modeling features
and check out the standard. You can even duplicate the diagrams created in this book as a
benchmark.
Platform support
You need to run the tool on your operating system(s). Verify that the tool is supported on
each platform you require. Beware that the versions for different platforms are not always in
sync. Some of the vendors bypass this problem by writing the tool in Java. Even so, differences
in virtual machines may surprise you.
Printing
One of the primary reasons you will create the UML diagrams is to share your ideas. Check
out the printing capabilities. Some tools require add-ins to get all the features you need.
Many of these diagrams can be very large, so the print features should support either plotters
or easy-to-use multi-page layouts. A print preview feature can also be a great time
saver when preparing presentations.
HTML documentation
Most of the time, there will be a limited number of people actually using the tool, but a much
larger number of people who need to see what is being produced. Printed output is good for
meetings but impractical for wide and frequent dissemination. Many of the current tools support
the generation of reports and diagrams in HTML format so that they may be published on
the Web. Again, some tools build this in as a standard feature while others use add-ins.