Page title:Using IBM Rational modeling products

Caption:IBM Rational modeling products are integrated design and development tools that use model-driven development to create well-architected applications and services. These offerings are very flexible and highly adaptable to the needs of any software development process. You can use various types of models and different workflows depending on the phase of your project and whether your organization has a strictly governed process or a more agile development approach.

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Page title:Workflows for IBM Rational modeling products

Caption: You can create and edit code visually in UML notational diagrams to help you better understand the domain model of a system, you can use small conceptual UML models to sketch the initial concepts of a system, or you can use semantically rich UML conceptual models to fully model an entire application. Complete UML semantic models can form the foundation for your application and can be transformed into code at any point in the development process, either to seed or to reconcile the design with the application code. This tour describes one of the many approaches that you can apply when you use IBM Rational modeling products to work with models and code.

Page text: Different projects, phases, and cultures often require different workflows. For software analysis and design, you can use either simple or semantically rich and complex UML conceptual models. During construction, you can use UML notational diagrams to understand and manipulate code.


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Page title:Using a concrete model to develop code

Caption:You can use IBM Rational modeling products to create a code model for languages, such as Java and C++, by depicting and visually editing the code in diagrams that use a style of notation very similar to UML. You can use these diagrams to add new code elements, such as classes, fields, and methods, or you can drag existing elements into diagrams. You can use tools such as topic diagrams, browse diagrams, and static method sequence diagrams to help visualize and understand your system.

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Page title:Benefits of this development approach

Caption:Visually editing code to create class-level UML models is an effective way to describe a system to less technical project stakeholders while you rapidly develop an implementation. You can create UML diagrams without maintaining a strict set of UML models. This approach is beneficial for organizations with little experience creating detailed visual specifications and can help fulfill compliance or regulatory requirements. This scenario best correlates to an agile modeling approach to software development.

Page text:Key benefits of an agile approach:


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Page title:When to use this approach

Caption:You should adopt this approach if your project philosophy favors an agile development process, or if you believe that the best architectures are crafted not engineered. Also, if your projects are small or low-risk and do not warrant rigorous analysis or architecting, design at the code level can be adequate.

Page text:When to use this approach: