Tools for System Modeling

¶ … system modeling? Do you already have them installed? If you are installing the Rational XDE, how did it go?

According to Allen McNaughton of Devx online computer magazine, the systems modeling program Rational XDE, in contrast to Microsoft's Visio systems modeling software, is by far the superior program of the two options. Unlike Microsoft's Visio, "Rational XDE supports round-trip engineering with continuous synchronization between the code and model elements that removes the need for separate forward and reverse engineering steps." Continuous synchronization within programs, says McNaughton, will be the wave of the future in modeling tools. (McNaughton, 2002)

Furthermore, within the Rational XDE program, "options are provided to control the frequency of code/model synchronization or to disable it entirely for selected elements if performance problems arise with large models," enabling users to tailor it to their specific programming needs. The program is useful as well "when approaching software design from a model-first-and-code-later perspective, as "when you use Rational XDE to reverse engineer a Web project that contains a code-behind file, Rational XDE creates an unstereotyped class in the model to represent the code-behind file." (McNaughton, 2002)

McNaughton recommends the program above its competitors unreservedly as "it is clear from the commitment the designers of Rational have made, that the software engineers view the platform "as a significant destination for new projects and for the migration of existing code bases. As such, UML and MDA tools from Rational and its competitors will become a more integrated part of the development cycle." Given the fact it is likely to be more often used by designers and programmers in the future, one would be well advised to avail one's self of the emerging technology. Although the program is not necessarily easier to install than other systems modeling tools, its greater flexibility to deal with the needs of evolving products, the ability to reverse engineer, and its streamlining of foreword and reverse engineering steps into continuous operations justify its comparative superiority to its competitors.