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UML in VSTS 2005 provided by Sparx EA

« H E Microsoft :: VSTS 2005 :: Architecture :: UML :: email
posted Sunday, 22 January 2006
One of the problems I have found in VSTS 2005 is the lack of modeling tools for the Software Architect. Jack Greenfield addressed and answered my concerns here. He also said MS is working addressing some of the issues with modeling and lack of process guidance.  I responded to him here.

 

I needed something today to allow me to continue doing my job which currently is implementing a product line engineering process.  I am using UML on this project.  In case you are interested, here is a list of the tools we are evaluating from MS and their status.  I answered Steve Cook's question as to what UML I would like to see supported by MS here.

 

XDE was out because it is not supported in VSTS 2005. Since no improvements have been made to Visio's UML features for so long, and there are no plans to improve it, Visio was out.  We ended up going with Sparx EA because of the price. 

 

So far, no complaints.  I have put together a baseline project structure for our core assets and on for our product development.  There was one small glitch with the importing the .eap file into a SQL 2000 repository.  But that was fixed by simply removing a foreign key constraint from the Sparx database Schema.  I also set up a repository in SQL Server 2005 and that is working fine too.  We are just about to start all the dirty work of creating all the assets.  In a few weeks I will follow up and let you know how the tool is working.

 

One side note.  The Visio XMI export tool found for download here, turned out to generate a useless export.  I posted to the MS Modeling and Tools forum to see if anyone has had luck with it here, but no luck so far.  I was hoping to be able to move some of the work done in Visio over to EA, but no luck.  We will have to reproduce it all.

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Comments (3)


1. Terry Go left...
Monday, 27 March 2006 12:17 pm

Have you tried to use Rational Software Modeler? Just like you, we are experiencing the difficulty of migrating XDE with VS.NET to "class diagram" with VS2005.


2. Tad Anderson left...
Monday, 27 March 2006 2:58 pm :: http://realworldsa.dotnetdevelopersjourn

Hello Terry,

No I haven't tried the Rational Software Modeler. Although, I did worked with XDE for a few years and it was very nice. I am steering away from Rational for now. No VSTS tool support in the foreseeable future in the .NET realm from them. Read more: http: //realworldsa.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/rational.htm

We had a list of tools to review and Sparx EA was on the top of the list because of price. After running through different scenarios we found it would handle what we wanted to do, so we went with it.

A lot of the work the shop I am consulting to did a lot in Visio so I was hoping the Visio® 2003 UML To XMI Export add-in would give us some help. That turned out to be useless. I am still having trouble figuring out what the point of making it was. Read more: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=212292&SiteID=1< /a>

Sparx EA has been performing really will for us. I am glad we chose to use it. Read more: http://realworldsa.dotnetdevelopers journal.com/uml_in_vsts_2005_provided_by_sparx_ea.htm

As far as the class diagram goes in VSTS 2005 it is nice will coding and may lead some advantage to Refactoring. It is a DSL tool with very limited capabilities. It holds absolutely no value what so ever in system design. It doesn’t even allow the use of stereotypes. I would say away from it if you are looking for a design tool. It can only lend an advantage to the developer during the construction phase, and may be able to be used to generate documents of already built modules. Read more: http://rea lworldsa.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/dsl.htm


3. Phil Rogers left...
Thursday, 28 June 2007 3:27 am :: http://www.cafetorium.co.uk

I used EA in my previous job and would recommend it over any of the high-priced alternatives such as Rose or Select Enterprise. EA has its own quirks but no show-stoppers. In my new job, they use "Visio for Enterprise Architects", which is a poor UML tool to say the least. I now have the opposite problem - I want to import my old EA models into Visio. EA exports to XMI, but there's no Import XMI for Visio. I don't suppose you know of any Visio add-ins, or standalone converters to get XMI into Visio?