UML Tools
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In the previous article, we gained an overview of what the Unified Modeling Language stands for and what are the nine diagrams that make up UML. Because UML is essentially a set of diagrams, you can simply draw them by hand on a piece of paper. But, drawing UML diagrams on a piece of paper is certainly not a best practice to design systems. Software applications simplify the task of drawing diagrams of software designs. In addition, because the design is in an electronic format, archiving the design for future use, collaborating on the design becomes much easier. Also, routine tasks can be automated by using a UML tool. Hence, using a UML tool is by far the most preferred way for designing software applications.
Features in UML Tools
This takes us to an important question—what exactly should we look for in a UML tool?
Because the primary use of a UML tool is to enable you to draw diagrams, first and foremost, we need to see what types of UML diagrams the tool supports. But, is drawing UML diagrams all that you would expect from a UML tool? For example, wouldn't it be great if the class diagrams that you draw in the tool can somehow be used to generate the source code for actual Java classes or C++ classes?
Let us take a look at another scenario. Suppose you were given a large set of source code files with lots and lots of classes. Wouldn't it be a nightmare wading through the code trying to figure out how all the classes are interconnected? This is where UML tools step in to make things a lot easier by providing support for such features. Now, let's define these features in technical terms:
1.UML diagram support: The UML tool should support all the nine diagrams that make up UML. You should look for a tool that supports drawing use cases, designing the static view diagrams such as class diagrams and object diagrams, defining the dynamic view diagrams such as sequence, activity, state, and collaboration diagrams and the component and deployment diagrams that form the implementation view of the system.
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