Rational Rose
is an object oriented ‘Unified Modelling Language’ (UML) software
design tool intended for visual modelling and component construction of
enterprise level software applications. In much the same way a theatrical
director blocks out a play, a software designer uses Rational Rose to visually
create model or the framework for an application by blocking out classes
with actors or stick figures, use case elements or ovals, objects or rectangles
and messages/relationships or arrows in a sequence diagram using drag-and-drop
symbols. Rational Rose documents the diagram as it is being constructed
and then generates code in the designer’s choice of C++, Visual Basic,
Java, Oracle 8, CORBA or ‘Data Definition Language’ (DDL).
Two popular features of Rational Rose are its ability to provide interactive
development and round-trip engineering. Rational Rose allows designers
to take advantage of interactive development sometimes called evolutionary
development because the new application can be created in stages with the
output of one iteration becoming the input to the next. Then, as the developer
begins to understand how the components interact and makes modifications
in the design, Rational Rose can perform what is called round-trip engineering
by going back and updating the rest of the model to ensure the code remains
consistent. Rational Rose is extensible, with downloadable add-ins and
third party partner applications. It supports COM/DCOM, ActiveX, JavaBeans,
and CORBA component standards. It is an object-oriented analysis and design
tool that runs on Windows and UNIX platforms from Rational Software Corporation,
Cupertino, CA. It supports the UML as well as the earlier BOOCH and OMT
notations. The base product is used for modelling applications, but versions
of Rational Rose are available that generate C++, Smalltalk, and ADA, SQL
and Object Pro code.
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