Which CASE Tools do you use?

Question

Which Computer-aided Software Engineering tools do you use and why? In what ways do they increase your productivity or help you design your programs? Or, in case you do not use CASE tools, what are your reasons for this?

Answer 1

I have used Rational Rose and a few other similar packages in the past. Mostly I have used them for the UML diagram elements and have not gone into the more detailed functionality such as code generation etc.

I mostly use them for aiding the design process and clarifying my own ideas. Often I find that, in trying to come up with a design for a componant, I end up needing to write down / draw what I want to happen so I can get a clear overview in my mind of what needs to happen and why. I have found that in a lot of cases, what I end up trying to draw is essentially the same as a predefined kind of diagram in UML, such as a Use Case Diagram etc. and by then adopting that style, it becomes easier to get my ideas on paper as I have some framework to work within.

So, I use CASE tools principally for thier UML / designing tools at a highish, semi-abstract level.

Answer 2

The best CASE tool I had to work with is the Enterprise Architect from Sparx.

It's lightweight comparing to Rose (easier to buy and cheaper too) but extremely powerful. You could do great UML diagrams or database model or anything else you want but in a nice and organised way.

It greatly helps on the initial stages of the elaboration process as you could create domain model, do some preliminary use cases, map them to the requirements and present all of it in a nice way to the customer. It helps me thinking and I re-factor my design with it until I am satisfied enough to start proper documentation. It is also very good for database models as it could reverse-engineer most databases very neatly.

The only (but quite serious) drawback it has in my eyes is that its documentation generator is, to put it mildly, crap. Getting a proper document from it is almost impossible unless you invest a significant amount of work in the templates and then it would be only OK.

Answer 3

Oracle Designer

Answer 4

Not using any. No money for them.

Answer 5

Enterprise Architect is one of the best CASE Tools, but you have a lot more of tools, and some of them free and some others open source and some others collaborative, and etc.

There is not such notion of best CASE tools, more about that you are not talking about CASE tools you are talking about UML Tools (uml tools IS A CASE tools but a CASE Tool is not necessarily a UML Tool)

for choosing UML tools you could search the web, there are a lot. for more information you have this site: CASE Tools

kind regards