Work On Development Tools - Part Two: UMLet or Modeler

Before reading Mike's comment on my previous post, I was playing around with UMLet, an open source Java application that also has Eclipse plug-in. I thought UMLet was an execllent tiny tool that can help me. It's simple, very easy to use. I can even export diagrams as PDF, GIF or PNG format. However, it is just TOO SIMPLE too fit my need. For example, it does not provides all the notations out of box, though you can add those notions by creating by yourself. This just seems extra work for me.

Mike Milinkovich pointed me to the Eclipse Modeler, which is part of an open source project called Amalgamation. This package is not small. It is about 78M. However, according to the project's web site, it is "A lightweight set of modeling technologies delivered as an Eclipse product that focuses on the needs of a modeling Practitioner; that is, it provides UML and BPMN diagramming capabilities."

The download and installation were both straightforward. Within a few minutes, I was able to create my own diagrams. The package comes with plenty of examples covering classes, components, activities, state machines, composite structures, deployments and use cases. Thank God for helping me to make decision of sticking with Eclipse. It couldn't be easier than using it's Eclipse plug-in. Thank you Mike. You save my time.

Let's go back to work.

Work On Development Tools - Part One: Eclipse or NetBeans

Both Eclipse and NetBeans are open source development environment. Because I have been working on Palm OS Developer Suite, which is based on Eclipse, it is by nature to stick with Eclipse to develop Mobile Go for J2ME. However, there are a lot of stuffs need to be done to get a complete environment for design, development, test and deployment.

First of all, I need a UML tool to model my software. I used Visual Paradigm for UML (Community Edition/evaluation copy) to design Mobile Go for Palm. I want a integrated tool to do my work this time. So I searched Eclipse's plug-ins. OMG, there are so many plug-ins. Which one should I choose? What I need is a tool that allows me doing diagrams. I don't really need auto code generation, reverse engine or CVS. I want it be easy to use, don't need to take days to install, configure and learn.

So, where is my baby?