And they are one of the best tools for developers and technical non-developers (like engineering managers and product managers) to use when discussing code design. Their inherent structure - objects flowing across the page, time flowing down the page - is intuitive and easy to learn. Probably some of the nicest tools I've used belong to the Rational family of tools.Sequence diagrams are frequently described as "the best part of UML". I definitely agree with mashi that whiteboards are great (together with a digital camera or cellphone). An interesting modeling tool free alternative is Umbrello, but I haven't really used it much. ![]() Free as in speech and beer :)Īs for the diagramming tool Dia, it's quite ugly (interface and resulting drawings), but it does get the job done. Works great on any Eclipse-enabled platform. Last I used it it still had some bugs, but it worked, and seems to have evolved nicely since. Otherwise i find the Topcased an interesting project (or group of projects). I've been trying out MagicDraw a bit, but while functional, I found the user interface distracting. OmniGraffle also has some UML stencils built in and more are available at Graffletopia, but I wouldn't recommend that as a diagramming tool as it has too many quirks (quirks that are good for many things, but not UML). It could be that I have grown used to it as it is the primary diagramming tool at my current assignment. When using Visio, I tend to use these stencils for my UMLing needs (the built in kind of suck). This also means I don't give tools that handle round-trip modeling well any bonus points. Also, they tend to have a large overhead for the occasional drawing. Wiki UML Tool ListĪs I usually use UML more as a communication tool rather than a modeling tool I sometimes have the need to flex the language a bit, which makes the strict modeling tools quite unwieldy. NEW - Found a good list of many UML tools with descriptions. This is a straight brain dump so a couple details may not be perfect, however, this should provide a general map to the questions and solutions to looking into. Watch out for closed or product specific code generation processes or frameworks as you could end up stuck with that product. Sparx and Visual Paradigm do UML really well and generate code well, however, hooking into project lifecycles and other process is where RSM/RSA is strong. Ok, that was way too detailed, so a simpler example would be ArgoUML, which has no code generation features and focuses on drawing more than the modeling aspect of UML. ![]()
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