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News: Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment

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  1. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment (22 messages)

    Rational has announced Rational XDE, an extended development environment designed to integrate with IBM Eclipse, Websphere Studio IDE and MS Visual Studio .NET. Rational XDE aims to eliminate the "gap between design and development" by brining the modeling tool into the IDE itself. XDE supports J2EE design patterns and J2EE server deployment code/model sychronization, and more.

    Read Rational tool doesn't play favorites.

    Rational is giving out free CD copies of XDE.

    Check out Rational XDE.

    Read the press release.
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    Threaded Messages (22)

  2. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Nice job on interfacing the modeling with the respective IDE's, but - how much else is new? I personally dislike 'automated' synch between models and code, unless you can achieve something like ADvance for Cincom's Visualworks, where the model and code are the same, thanks to Smalltalks' object model.

    For a comparision product, take a look at Enterprise Architect, which gives you code import/generation for Java, VB.Net, C#, C++, and VB in one package. It includes all nine UML diagrams, plus stereotyped extensions for data modeling that are eminently useful. This, plus useful project management extensions, for less than $150.00. (I am not associated with Sparx Systems in any way - just a grateful and very happy user). Check it out at http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/

     
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  3. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    "I am not associated with Sparx Systems in any way - just a grateful and very happy user"

    Same here. It's a good product at a reasonable price. Rational products are way too pricey.
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  4. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Thanks i just try the evaluating Enterprise Architect from
    sparxsystem and i never find a solution that glue to my needs

    at 150$us it's almost free

    after using it for 2 days i will by it


    thanks again
    Reply to this Reply to original

  5. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Have any tried this new tool ? Are the models still saved as .mdl files like Rose do or have Rational done something like Together where the modelling elements are stored directly as code ? If Rational focuses on this tool to be a developers tool, it would be favorable if that was the case, but the synchronize menu option seems to indicate the opposite.

    Just a few thoughts....

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  6. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    I don't know why several people like the idea that the model and the code should be one and the same! How do you separate the architecture from the code base if it is the same thing? There is a dirrerence in how you represent (structure) the architecture and design as opposed to how you structure the code (they are not automatically the same)!
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  7. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    "There is a dirrerence in how you represent (structure) the architecture and design as opposed to how you structure the code (they are not automatically the same)! "

    So true. An example is UML interface and Java interface. They are not the same thing. Java bastardized the meaning of interface to allow constants. I think it was done as a hack around dissallowing multiple implementation inheritance.
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  8. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    I agree some portions of the model should be apart from the code for documentation, business analysis, etc.... At a MACRO design level, you certainly would want to isolate the big picture. However, having a developer refer back to a use case, a class diagram, or some functional requirment in the same workspace is certainly a big plus. I beleive a tool like this is a bridge between the developers and the architects. I have definitely seen developers many times go away from the architecture because of lack of commiunication.

    Having Rational work with the Eclipse platform is a huge plus, Architects, developers, etc... can have different perspectives under the same Workbench.
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  9. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    I agree to a certain point.

    If you look on the users of this product I guess that will be developers and architects. For a developer it is a point that the model is up to date with the code. Haven't tried this product, but having done code generation in Rose since 98, I know this isn't Rational's strongest side.

    If you have a good tool it will be able to give you an UML view on the code which has the correct level of detail. Could mark methods as implementational details and not be shown in the UML diagrams. There are language constraints that you won't consider in a design phase, but a good tool will give the opportunity work around these things when you want to.

    ---- Trond
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  10. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    I love the idea of having one soure of information. Depending on the level where you develop you may don't care about code but it doesn't bother you if it's stored in a source file instead of an mdl or xmi. If you really want to seperate it just use a different repository.

    My experience is that the model and the code and the documentation fall appart after some time if they're in different datastores. Using a process that stopps that costs a lot of man power and time. Another disadvantage is that the developers feel caged and are less productive.
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  11. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]



    I have to agree entirely. Every project that I have worked on (or know about) that used UML, FAILED to keep the UML in synch with the code.

    Rational Rose's (and other tools) "code generation" and "reverse engineering" were far from reliable operations. The task of keeping the code and UML in synch soaked up so many man hours - and was so painful - that in the end the UML model was dropped.

    The best approach that I have seen to remove this issue, is to remove the code generation / reverse engineering process. Together does this perfectly - the model and the code are the same. For non-developer users, they can ignore the fact that there is code underneath - and they see a simpler UI.

    For this reason, I see that Rational XDE is a mile better than the clunky Rose - in the end I expect that it will replace it. However, I havent used it yet.... I am about to evaluate it to see if it stacks up against Together - and how much Rose clunkiness it has inherited.


    Has anyone played with XDE yet? What comments/ feedback do you have?

    Cheers,
    Nick

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  12. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]


    I doubt anyone is still looking at this thread - but just in case:

    I have just spent an amount of time looking at rational XDE and I can say that its not yet a competitor for Together:

    1) The code/UML synchronisation is flaky. UML updates often requirea a manual generation of code.

    2) It has obviously been written by people who dont develop java (its evident they are C++ developers - a new Java class is created with a default constructor and finalize method (someone looking for the java equiv of a destructor perhaps?)

    3) Given (2) its no surprise that the EJB support has been written from a spec - with not a lot of understanding.

    4) It was fairly clear and intuitive to use - evident by the fact that between us and the sales guy we were able to discover its features and how it worked - none of us had seen it before.
    While together is nice - a more intuitive UI is something Together could benefit from.

    Stick to Together is the bottom line (if you can afford it, of course)

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  13. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    We are currently using WSAD, and would like to use this product. However, our dev platform is NT, and according to Rational's docs XDE only supports Win2000 and XP. Can anyone confirm if this is correct? Seems strange to me not to support NT - I'm sure a lot of large organisations like us are still stuck on NT!

    Cheers,
    Andy
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  14. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Is it just me, or do the recommeded resource requirements seem a little steep? 512MB RAM, 700 MHz PIII, 400MB for installation directory and 2GB for workspace. Geez, you'd think this was MS Office or something...

    Chuck
    (stuck with this old 366 MHz PII notebook with 384MB RAM)
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  15. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    "Rational tool doesn't play favorites"

    Cough - did they send me the wrong stream, or did I hear the word "IBM" a couple dozen times in my imagination?

    Just looks like a TogetherJ competitor to me... I didn't hear about anything revolutionary.

    Thanks for the sparx link guys... am checking it out.
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  16. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    I agree about Sparx Systems. For what I do it works quite well. Try it!

    Cheers
    Ray
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  17. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    What is the best 100% Java UML modelling tool out there? Opinions?

    I'd like something that I can run under Linux.

    The only one that I am aware of is MagicDraw UML.

    -- jason

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  18. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Yep MagicDraw is the best of both worlds quality and price. I worked for that company long time ago when MD was born ...
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  19. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    ive glanced at argouml... www.argouml.org..
    looks nice.. and its free
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  20. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Well, the best Java UML tool IMO (!!!) is Together... tradeoff: be prepared to spend some money ;-) Ah yes: And don't think you can do serious EJB 2.0 design there (fine grained). There is an eval I think.

    regards,

    Messi
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  21. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    <quote>
     Well, the best Java UML tool IMO (!!!) is Together... tradeoff: be prepared to spend some money ;-) Ah yes: And don't think you can do serious EJB 2.0 design there (fine grained). There is an eval I think.
    </quote>

    Yes. Price is definitely an issue. I have Linux on the desktop, after all.

    Together Control Center looks like a terrific toolset. Integrated IDE/modelling in 100% Java. But $5000 plus a few $K more for the support contract is WAAAAY over the top for a limited budget.

    A combination of Intellij IDEA and MagicDraw UML commercial licenses can get you in at ~$1000. That is much more palatable.

    The Enterprise Edition of MagicDraw (~$700) has full code generation and reverse engineering capablities. It's not an integrated IDE, but the price sure is right.

    -- jason

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  22. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    Hello, I've used most of the UML, IDE tools on the market but I find that Rational Rose is a bloated software that tries to do to many things at the same time.
    And the minimum requirements for XDE are ridiculous.
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  23. Rational announces Rational Extended Development Environment[ Go to top ]

    XDE looks interesting and is a step in the right direction, if not a little resource heavy at the moment... it's a first release though.

    A lot of the arguments Rational use for adopting XDE sound good - no need to switch between different, non-integrated tools, for example - or lots of automation to simplify common tasks. The integration with IBM IDEs is great if you use IBM IDEs...

    There is a platform available which gives you the benefits of being able to integrate disparate tools and to work within a single architectural platform environment AND support generation of EJBs for IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and other App. Server or EJB containers (or even generate mainframe COBOL!), all based upon the approach defined by OMGs model Driven Architecture (MDA). It integrates with Rose and shares repositories too.

    The platform is called ArcStyler and it's an Architectural IDE for MDA.

    You can check it out for free from www.ArcStyler.com.
    Reply to this Reply to original